New building code could add $475 to cost of home construction
Adoption of the state-mandated Uniform Construction Code means anyone building a one- or two-family home in Fayette County will pay an extra $475 for required inspections, according to the proposed fee schedule. The UCC will touch many other areas of construction, requiring $40 to $200 inspection fees for an array of repairs, alterations, additions and even demolitions. But one of the architects of the county’s fee schedule, Fayette County Executive Director Raymond C. Polaski, believes the extra consumer protection is well worth the added cost.
With his estimate of the average cost of a new home in Fayette ranging from $125,000 to $150,000, Polaski says the $475 inspection fee represents less than one-half of 1 percent of the cost of building a new home.
More importantly Polaski says the UCC requires that all construction be performed up to established professional building standards, which heretofore hasn’t been a requirement in the county.
“It’s a consumer protection tool. It says to someone who is having something built that there is a way to have a professional analysis of what’s being done, to make sure it meets standards,” says Polaski, who adds, “We can take you to other parts of Pennsylvania where this is second nature, because it’s been going on for so many years.”
While the imposition of UCC by Harrisburg has generated much local attention and controversy – it was approved the state legislature in 1999 and Polaski says the county’s municipalities have until Aug. 8 to decide how they’re going to handle it – the proposed fee schedule hasn’t garnered as much notice.
It’s largely the product of more than two years of work with significant input from Polaski and Tammy Shell, director of the county’s Planning, Zoning and Community Development Office. Distributed to officials of the county’s 42 municipalities on May 3, the fee schedule has yet to be approved by the Fayette County commissioners.
“This is a draft,” says Polaski. “This goes at some point before the county commissioners for their approval.”
Commissioners Joseph A. Hardy III and Vincent A. Vicites have already voted to have the county serve as a clearinghouse of sorts for scheduling the inspections required by implementing the UCC. Vicites in particular has supported taking on that responsibility at the county level, as a logical and cost-effective extension of the planning and zoning office that already covers 32 of the county’s 42 municipalities.
At Wednesday’s salary board meeting, Vicites and county Controller Mark Roberts voted to create the $34,963-a-year position of UCC administrator, a job whose salary and benefits are projected to come from a portion of the added inspection fees.
Commissioner Angela M. Zimmerlink, who opposed county involvement in UCC because it is mandated only for individual townships, boroughs and cities, and not for county government, voted against creating the new position on those same philosophical grounds.
“We as the county do not have the obligation. The municipalities have the obligation,” said Zimmerlink, who doesn’t favor creating another layer of county bureaucracy.
Vicites said the implementation of UCC amounts to an unfunded mandate that the state slapped on municipalities. “If they would happen to repeal it, I wouldn’t stand in the way,” he added.
But the county commissioners haven’t formally adopted the fee schedule, which is currently being floated past municipal officials. In addition to the $475 inspection fee for building a one- or two-bedroom new home, it proposes the following inspection fees, all of which Polaski says are based on analysis of the private firm charge for performing such tasks:
? 12 cents per square foot for multi-family, commercial and industrial construction, and for other new construction (including additions, garages and storage sheds).
??Eight cents per square foot for alterations and renovations (such as tearing out a wall or modifying a heating or cooling system).
??Four cents per square foot for demolition.
The proposed inspection fee schedule also calls for:
??A $40 fee for inspecting a variety of mechanical items, including boilers, water heaters, kitchen exhaust systems, gas piping system, fuel oil piping systems, chimneys and vents, and solar heating and cooling systems.
??A progressive fee schedule for electrical inspections in one- or two-family dwellings, starting with $60 for repairs or alternations to service, outlets, switches and fixtures; rising to $90 for additions to service, outlets, switches and fixtures (including rough wire and final inspection); and ending with $125 for new construction, including temporary service, service, rough wire and final inspection.
??A different fee schedule for all other electrical use groups, including fire and burglar alarms, and dwellings with a hot tub, sap or central air conditioning unit. It would cover outlets, switches, fixtures and fractional HP motors. This fee for rough wire and final inspection would be $80 if the job covers between one and 20 such devices, $150 if it covers between 21 and 100 such devices, and an extra $100 for each additional 100 devices.
??A sliding scale fee schedule for service equipments and disconnection (replacement or upgrading), as follows: $45 up to 100 AMP, $55 up to 200 AMP, $75 up to 400 AMP, $100 up to 800 AMP and $200 if over 800 AMP.
??A $250 inspection fee for public or commercial swimming pools, and a $60 inspection fee for private swimming pools.