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Page 2 <br />Staff is recommending that the housing inspection program be <br />conducted by the Building and Zoning Department. Further, we <br />• are recommending that for apartment buildings the housing <br />inspector also does fire inspections. Having these inspections <br />conducted by the Building and Zoning Department places all <br />inspections for the city in one place. <br />If the Fire Department did the housing inspections, filing, <br />scheduling of inspections, preparing licenses, etc., would still <br />need to be done by secretarial staff from the Building and <br />Zoning Department. Having the inspector housed at the Fire <br />Department and the permits and licenses at City Hall, would <br />not be very user friendly. <br />If the housing inspector also does fire inspections, it eliminates <br />the issue of hitting the apartment owner twice for inspections. <br />A housing/fire inspector may or may not be able to help the Fire <br />Department in pre-planning. <br />2. Yearly License <br />Initially, staff was proposing to do the housing inspection during <br />the non-peak construction season (winter) with whatever time <br />. could be squeezed out of the building inspectors. The Council <br />will recall that this is one reason that was used to justify the <br />hiring of Dennis Anderson. When we presented this to the City <br />Council we estimated that it would take 4 to 5 years to do the <br />initial round of inspections on just apartment buildings. Every <br />city we talked to adamantly emphasized yearly inspections and <br />licensing. They made the point that if licensing and inspections <br />are not done yearly it makes a mockery of the program and <br />there is a consistency issue with who gets inspected when. <br />3. Hiring a Housing' Code Inspector/Fire Inspector <br />Staff knows that this topic is not going to be a popular issue <br />with the City Council. However, without an additional inspector <br />to administer this program, staff is strongly recommending that <br />we do not even start it. There are currently 1,060 apartment <br />units in Elk River and over 300 other rental units. If housing <br />inspection can not be done consistently, thoroughly, and timely, <br />the program will be a failure. <br />Using existing staff will not be adequate. Since Dennis <br />• Anderson was hired, building activity has increased. 1994, was <br />a record year for commercial and industrial valuation of <br />cc-house/bz/stever <br />