Clay County Commissioners gave preliminary approval to a new codes enforcement board to oversee building permit fines and inspection requirements Monday night.
Commissioner Bryan Coons said he researched policies in Macon County and found that higher permit fees and deposits have successfully encouraged residents to complete their required inspections.
“I wondered who was gonna take care of all this was one thing,” Coons said, “If we were gonna make a board or if there were gonna be any comments from the public or anything. When you start putting fines on people, giving people power to, to issue fines, I don’t like that without having some background on it.”
Building Inspector Anthony Bakely said the county currently lacks rules to handle residents who ignore stop-work orders. He said he recommends a system where residents pay a deposit on building permits that is fully refunded once all required inspections are completed.
“I recommend a board across all your counties, all your jurisdictions,” Bakely said. “Yeah, I’ve recommended the board, that’s correct, but I recommend putting the deposit up on building permits and during that deposit stage, if they get all their required inspections, they get their full amount deposit back.”
Commissioner Dorothy Forney said the county has already delayed action on the matter and needed to move forward with a solution.
“I mean, if you’re going to form a board, when are you going to do it?” Forney said. “This is political as anything I’ve seen.”
One commissioner from each of the five districts was appointed to serve on the new board. The members include Austin Smith, Parrish Wright, Dorothy Forney, Winton Young, and Jennifer Ritter.
The board will be officially known as the codes enforcement board rather than an appellant board.
The resolution regarding the fines and permit requirements will be brought back for a vote during the next meeting on August 10.