After more than a year of meetings and discussions, the Allen County Building Department has been formed.
Commissioners passing legislation Tuesday authorizing the creation of the department and entering into a service agreement with the City of Lima to enforce the Ohio Building Code on behalf of the Allen County Building Department. Over the past year, the commissioners looked at several options including contracting with the Miami County Building Department for services. But after further discussion with the Lima Building department, the commissioners have decided to stay local.
"We went looking for better customer service and we found it right here, we just had to make our point." said Jay Begg, Allen County commissioner. "I think the message was heard, I think there was, you know, they have new staff. The staff maybe would have implemented some of those anyway but I think we may have set a level of service that we wanted for the Allen County Building Department."
"Over the course of these last four of five months, we've worked hard and we've worked together with the county commissioners and I believe that the services that we are providing now are the best that this county has ever seen," said Howard Elstro, City of Lima Public Works Department director.
The city building department made several changes asked for by the commissioners. Remote video inspections are in place and they have performed their first digital online plan review. The commissioners must now send their application for creating the building department to the state for approval.
