Travis County Commissioners Court
August 18, 2009,
Item 20
Mr.
joe gieselman, 20, receive briefing on house bill 2833 regarding residential building inspections and notifications in unincorporated areas of Travis County.
i beg your pardon?
we're on 20.
>> this is to receive a report back as a follow-up to a discussion about two weeks ago about this new law.
and whether or not the county would actively participate in a sort of limited basis.
>> well, we've read the law and it looks like it's fair letter straightforward -- it's fairly straightforward.
the development in the unincorporated area as any home builder would have to have three different inspections done by one or another international version of the building code.
and it's their choice on what version they use.
it's really for the role of the county, if it chooses to have a role, is number one, enable to law to take effect within the unincorporated area of Travis County.
and two, decide whether or not the county should be the keeper of the record.
tnr is recommending that we do that because it's going to be much easier for a perspective subsequent home buyer to come to the county to get that information on whether or not their inspections passed or failed than it might be to track down some individual builder.
if we fail to do this, then the home buyers will have to go hunt out whoever built their house 20 years from now and find out if the records are still available, and you can imagine how many home builders there are in Travis County over that period of time.
so we do keep records on on-site sewage permits.
we have our own basic development permit that everyone needs to have if they're even disturbing the dirt.
so it's not that we're not in the record-keeping business.
we believe that the county could probably add this to their responsibilities and really provide a service to perspective home buyers in the future.
right now there's not a whole lot of development going on, so in terms of man hours, personnel hours needed to do the record keeping, we don't imagine that would be anything we can't handle with existing staff.
it may not be true two years from now when the building comes back and we get a whole lot more permits being sought.
and maybe an additional resource we need at that time.
we think it is a good idea that there be building codes in the incorporated area -- in the unincorporated area and that these buildings, these residential structures, be inspected.
there's no provision for failure of inspections.
if they fail, we'll just keep the record to show that they failed.
you have no ability to enforce these building codes under the law, nor do you have any ability to charge for -- a fee to offset any costs that may be incurred by participating in this program.
with that said, I think it's still a good idea to have building codes in the unincorporated area.
now, we do have kind of a safety valve in that the city of Austin applies their building code within the unincorporated area.
to the extent that they are providing services, water, wastewater, electricity and such, they typically extend their building codes to those as an exchange.
you want our services, you build your structures according to our codes.
>> does that include electricity also?
any utilities provided in I guess the city's e.t.j., per se, that would also give some direction as far as their particular building standards would be applicable?
>> only where they provide services.
now, that's not --
>> is that electricity also?
>> that's not the unincorporated area.
you know we have water corporations and water districts that provide water.
>> but is that -- that was my point.
since we do have the ccn's all over the place, some of them provide water and wastewater services, but then again you have maybe the city providing the utilities as far as electric is concerned.
and that was my point, where did the breakdown come into play if we asked the city or the city is involved in this as far as applying their particular standards based on what portion of the service they provide.
do you follow me?
>> I do, and I will check on the answer, but -- what your question is, if the city's only providing electric, do they only enforce the electric portion of the code?
as opposed to the water and wastewater?
>> exactly.
>> I think my response to that is no matter what response you get from the city, you conform to the entire code.
>> okay.
>> I will check to verify it.
>> you check that.
thank you.
>> but this -- understand, this bill would apply county-wide, so even if the city -- they literally trump the county in where they do enforce their own code, but where there is no city services and as a result no city code enforcement, then this would apply in that area.
so we would have uniform building code throughout the unincorporated area no matter whether the city is enforcing their code or not.
so that's the -- the benefit of this is that we have a code county-wide.
and no matter whether you're out in the fringe of the county or in the e.t.j., it will be some building code that applies to the residential structures being built in the county.
that's good.
and I think it will be a nominal expense for the county.
actually, very little expense for the first couple of years because we believe we can handle this work load with existing staff.
the only caveat I make is as things start ramping up, perhaps in a couple of years, we start getting more and more building permits, then the cost of maintaining these records over time may require additional resources.
>> well, I'm just trying to recollect what happened when we had those other folks here when this came up before the court before, the council of real estate interest and stuff like that, when they were actually giving testimony.
and I can't recall -- maybe you can help me out.
but I was trying to determine the cost of expense, who would bear the cost of expense to actually do the inspection.
>> the builders.
>> the builders will incur that expense.
>> first of builders and I'm sure they will pass that on to the home buyers.
>> to the home buyers.
okay.
all right.
thanks.
>> joe, for the benefit of those out there, this is for construction of new homes and buildings moving forward.
there's not going to be any retro active inspection on existing homes?
>> new construction.
and I don't that's a good question because --
>> stacy sheffield, tnr.
the bill also provides if you're going to do a substantial improvement to a residential structure.
that's more than 50% of its cost or 50% of the square footage.
you would have to comply with this.
>> and that's a state law?
>> if we adopted the provisions of this, all new and substantially improved residential, one and two residential structures, would need to comply.
>> but either we adopt the state law or we don't?
>> that's right.
>> we can't piecemeal it, right?
>> that's right.
>> we can't say we will do this subsection, but not that one.
>> I believe that's correct.
>> but for checks and balances purposes, and this may be looking at this and you said the developers will be responsible for doing the inspection, and of course that cost will be borne by the person that purchased the home, but for checks and balances, is there an independent type of inspection that may take place to say, wait a minute, this is not right or this wasn't inspected the proper way?
here's something that should have been caught, but was not caught.
and of course then the buyer themselves will be stuck with that uncertainty of what they thought was inspected and was not inspected properly.
and my question would be then who would be liable?
>> well, these inspections are done by a certified inspector.
in some cases certified professional engineers.
so there may be some private remedy there in terms of someone falsely certified compliance.
they would have to go through some professional board to seek remedy.
the county can, if it chooses, pay for an inspector and do a truth check, but that is additional resources.
there's no way for the county to recoup those costs from the builder.
>> okay.
i see some shortcomings also, and that's one of them I think in my mind.
but there's some good project things also, but that's something that I really need to wrestle with.
>> mr.
reeferseed?
>> my question on this issue is does this supersede or override all Travis County property owners association regulations?
>> the property owners association wouldn't typically have anything to do with the construction per se.
those are typically after the subdivisions are put in place.
i don't believe that the homeowners associations have building standards that create the structures for which the associations -- that they become members.
>> I would have thought so too, but I hate to inform you that -- I'm not too happy about it.
my own property owners association in which I live, it's part of Travis County, but they just came up with their own rules about how many feet -- how big your house has to be and all.
they took that power upon themselves.
i'm wondering if this would supersede or override those determinations that were made democratically supposedly by -- like I said, in my case cross wind property owners association.
we have our own rules.
>> that's probably something I need to look into.
>> okay.
thank you.
>> now, in view of what we've heard today -- mr.
savio, do you have comments?
i think we need to come up with a one or two pager that clearly sets out what the county will do and connected to this particular legislation.
i've kind of posted this as kind after follow-up discussion.
i think we need to see that document so if residents have questions about what it is that the county will and will not do, we would have a specific document to turn to.
>> that's a good point, judge.
>> mr.
savio?
>> just for the benefit -- my name is harry savio, I'm the vice-president of the home builders association of greater Austin.
i just wanted to provide the court some background information in response to that, the question that was just asked.
the building code as joe alluded to operates independently from any homeowner association requirements.
the building codes strictly address public safety issues, so they address span widths, the structure and window sizes.
the only time that they address such things as, for example, home size is in a very minimalist level on what's required for public safety.
so nothing in the code should really impact a homeowners association requirements in any way.
if there is a conflict, then I think your attorney will say that state law will supersede that.
>> and mr.
reeferseed knows that if he has a problem with his homeowners association, consult with his private legal counsel.
>> exactly.
>> and we rish him well.
>> -- and we wish him well.
>> exactly, judge.
>> can we have that back on next week and that will put us in good sted?
this takes place in 2010?
>> and some resolution on the part of the court to make the law effective in Travis County?
>> do we need that, ms.
jo?
>> yes, you do.
>> so yes, we sure do.
>> and jo, if you can, just investigate the service level categories which is applicable and which is not.
the way I explained it to you as far as the breakdown of does it have to be all or part of service that's provided by the city of Austin to adopt and apply their code.
if you can look that up, I would appreciate that, within one week's time.
>> if we could get the document prepared, say, by noon or so on Friday, get it distributed, including to the home builders, and our intention would be next Tuesday take action.
unless there's objection, those will be directions from the court of our intention to take action on a specific document next week.
anything further on this item today?
thank you very much.
and we would like your public service attitude there, joe, being able to assume these additional responsibilities with the current staff.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank y'all.
thank you.
i appreciate it.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 3:07 PM
