By Crystal McGough
PINSON — The Pinson City Council continued a discussion concerning taking responsibility for building permits and inspections in the city, during its meeting on Thursday, April 1, 2021. City attorney Shane Black was present to answer any questions or concerns the council had.
“We’re going to make this thing easy on law-abiding citizens in Pinson who are wanting to build,” Black said. “The most efficient way to do that right out the gate is to take the codes that are currently implemented and adopted for this community and adopt the same ones, similar to what this city’s approach was with zoning. … So what we’d be looking at is adopting the same technical codes that Jefferson County has adopted, and those include building codes, electrical codes, fuel gas codes and plumbing codes. … It is a process, but we are underway.”
During the March 4 council meeting, Zoning Administrator Bob Jones informed the council that Pinson was the only city still relying on Jefferson County to oversee building permits and inspections. Jones said that the city not taking responsibility for permits and inspections would be doing a disservice to people hiring non-licensed, non-insured contractors.
“My biggest concern is that we don’t have anyone watching for the ne’er-do-wells that’s out there putting our citizens in a bad spot,” he said. “It’s extremely difficult to back-track on that and get it fixed. It becomes a civil matter.”
While the city taking over permits and inspections will not necessarily prevent citizens from having issues with contractors, Jones said that it will offer them protection.
“Nothing is fool-proof,” he said. “We can’t make the world where there are not bad contractors, but if they are licensed with us and licensed with the state and we know of them, they’re easier to track down. It is a very high level of protection that our citizens deserve.”
Mayor Cochran said that the city would likely start out with a qualified part-time employee overseeing building permits and inspections, with the possibility of making the position full-time in the future.
“Code enforcement is not only to make sure that buildings are built right,” he said, “but it’s also to protect the citizens from being taken for a ride.”