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NEW BEDFORD — Richard Miranda has sent his roofing crews to jobs in many cities and towns in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, but in his experience not many can match New Bedford as a place to do business. For bureaucratic delay, needless nit-picking and sheer aggravation, Miranda said the city’s building department is in a class by itself.
“It’s tough to do business with the building department in New Bedford. Very, very tough,” said Miranda, owner of Diversified Roofing Systems, Inc. in New Bedford. He points to documented cases last year and in 2021 where the city held up permits for weeks, citing an array of objections, only to issue permits shortly after Miranda threatened to refer the disputes to state authorities.
Miranda is not alone in this view, he’s just one person in the city involved in building and development willing to say so publicly, and provide his name. Grumbling otherwise emerges in comments not for attribution, remarks in public meetings and local media.
Ward 6 City Councilor Ryan Pereira has also heard harsh criticism of the Department of Inspectional Services, and said the city needs to know if there’s anything to it. It’s crucial now, he said, as the city tries to encourage more construction to control the rising cost of housing.
Pereira, sales manager in his family’s home improvement business, will introduce at the council meeting on Thursday night a report issued by a state agency in 2022 that found the city department did not follow proper procedures in six cases. He’ll ask to have the matter referred to the council Committee on Internal Affairs.
In pursuit of a housing plan unveiled last year by Mayor Jon Mitchell, including more efficient building regulation, Pereira said “we’ve got to address what I see as foundational problems,” including questions about whether builders avoid working in the city because they don’t want to deal with Inspectional Services.
“We’ve heard in the (council) chamber, many times or on radio, ‘we’ll never work in New Bedford,’” because of the trouble in permitting and inspections, Pereira said. “Is that a truth? If that’s true, it’s very difficult to work in New Bedford.”
The report by the state Office of Public Safety & Inspections — which has not been presented to the council before — concludes that the complaints “appear to be valid, at least to some extent … However, difficulties do not appear to be systemic …”
That’s hardly damning on its face, especially in light of the fact that the city agency issued nearly 2,900 and 2,407 permits respectively in 2021 and 2022, the years the state investigated those complaints. Still, Pereira said the city should know if there’s more to the story.
“We have six incidents, each time we have proper procedure not followed,” said Pereira, adding that the report was left in his council mailbox. “What are we missing? What are we letting slip by?”
City spokesperson Jonathan Darling said the city has been working to improve the permitting process, including a shift at the end of 2022 from a paper-based to an online system.
“The new OpenGov system has improved communication, increased transparency and streamlined the process to make it more efficient for applicants and staff,” Darling said in an email.
He said the new system gives department staff and applicants a place to connect, and allows applicants to “track the progress of their application through the various stages of the permitting process in real time, right from their smartphones or computers.”
He said nearly 90% of applicants now use the online system, and the number of them has mounted in recent years. In 2019, Darling said, the agency issued 1,231 building permits, as compared with 3,561 in 2023.
“We’ve heard in the (council) chamber, many times or on radio, ‘we’ll never work in New Bedford.’ Is that a truth?”
City Councilor Ryan Pereira
Inspectional Services Director Danny Romanowicz leads a department of 15 employees, including himself among six administrative staff. The agency includes five inspectors for buildings, one for plumbing and gas, one for weights and measures, two for electrical.
The ease of communication and information access provided in the new platform would address at least some of the trouble pointed out in the state report.
The 20-page report — with names of the people who made complaints and property addresses stricken out by the state — is based on a review of six complaints sent to OPSI between July and November, 2020. The state agency conducted the review in 2021, and interviews with Romanowicz and with Matthew Silva, then a building inspector, now assistant department director, in June 2022.
The report found that in these six instances, officials fell short chiefly in two ways: communication and promptness.
Specifically, the report said officials did not consistently make clear in writing inspection requirements or why certain work was ordered. They did not respond quickly enough to inspection requests, and were not consistently hitting the 30-day mark required by the state code for issuing either a permit or a clear notice that more time and/or information was needed to do so.
In one instance, the report said that an inspector, who is no longer with the agency, appeared to be conducting inspections on properties where he had some private interest, perhaps because he had done work or sought the work in his private consulting business.
The complaints in three cases claim that inspectors demanded extra work, or work that was not in original plans. The report did not conclude that this work was not necessary, but did say that inspectors should explain their instructions more clearly.
The patterns in these complaints are consistent with claims being made by others, including Miranda, who tells about a years-long history of run-ins with the agency. He said it started when he bought his company building on Cedar Street in 2016.
The property had been a sheet-metal business before, standing in a district of both homes and businesses, including small manufacturing. For months he said the building department said he could not operate the business there because the use did not fit the zoning. Miranda said he hired a lawyer who wrote one letter to the department, and the objections were dropped.
He showed trails of emails and letters in two other incidents in 2021 and 2023 that follow a similar pattern. In both cases, the city held up building permits for jobs on Elm Street, North Front Street, and Acushnet Avenue, insisting that a storm water runoff plan had to be submitted first. Miranda argued that storm water plans were to be made between the property owner and the city, and had nothing to do with the building permit.
The city withheld the permits beyond the 30-day limit set by the building code. In each instance, Miranda said he sent letters saying he would refer these disputes to the state for their review. In both cases, the city then dropped the objections and issued the permits, Miranda said.
In 2023, records show the permits were issued less than two weeks after the date of Miranda’s letter. One permit was issued in 47 days, the other in 38 days.
In the 2021 incident, Miranda said he applied for the permit in mid-March and received it in early June.
In response to these claims, Darling said the agency “processes thousands of permit applications every year. Each application is different; some are more intricate as some projects are more complex than others, and therefore some applications take longer to process than others.”
He said the city wants applicants to let the agency know how they’re doing, “as we strive to provide the highest level of service to our residents, business owners, and the increasing number of developers investing in New Bedford.”
The state report cites the city for not consistently meeting the 30-day time limit for either issuing a permit or contacting the applicant to make clear the reason for the delay.
Records show that the city is making the 30-day deadline a bit more than half the time.
Building permit records for six months between December 2022 and May 2023 show 2,059 permits issued, 59% of them in 31 days or fewer. Just over 200, or about 10%, were issued between 40 and 60 days, 6% in 60 to 90 days and nearly 4% in 90 to 120 days.
A study conducted for the city last year by a group of three students led by a faculty member from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government included slightly different records, and reached different results. The group found that between December 2022 and March 2023, 76% of permits issued are completed in 30 days. The reason for the discrepancy is not clear.
The study said the average permit completion time is nearly 11 days.
The researchers conducted a written survey of people who had dealings with Inspectional Services to which 81 people responded. The researchers interviewed 19 people, including 11 city officials, five repeat applicants, and three one-time applicants.
The anonymous interview quotes included in the report echo many of the gripes heard in off-record interviews with people saying they’ve had difficulties with inspectional services.
Staff members “turn their back on who they want and give others a hard time,” one person said. “They hide behind this system like a shield that allows them to slow the process down,” said another.
On the other hand, in response to the survey, 68% said they expect to have a good experience if they apply for a building permit in the future.
Miranda sees it differently. He’s tired of the conflicts, he said, and hopes the council action will lead to change in the department, especially Romanowicz.
“I would like to see the council replace him,” Miranda said. “Or remove some of the power he has. He’s got too much.”
Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org.
I develop in several communities and I have found the City permit process responsive and Mr Romanowicz professionsl in every situation , including those decisions that did not go my way.
I have had numerous issues with the inspections dept involving my homes bi annually inspection. What was never a problem for 20 yrs all of sudden was. I had to spend a few thousand dollars to have changes made to my home in order to pass. It seems like every time I have a home inspection, they find something that needs to be corrected that hasn’t changed any. This home has been in my family for several years and I’ve been in it for over 50 years and the owner for the last 20. I live in this home and take care of it. I pay my taxes that always goes up insurance keeps going up and the inspection dept needs me to spend more money every other year doing things the were fine 2 yrs ago. This business man is correct. Danny is awful to work with. The previous commenter Mike P is a well known wealthy property owner so he catches a break most likely but us regular blue collar guys that do their best to keep their home safe for his family and tenants that’s never had any complaints and the same tenants for over 20 yrs get the shaft. Thank you inspections. We’ll see what your inspections find wrong this year. I will not post my name because Danny may retaliate on my next inspection coming soon.
are apartment buildings in new bedford supposed to be inspected by the town yearly?
New Bedford’s city government being ineffective? What?! Who could have told you that?
Oh, only about anyone who has lived here for any length of time.
As a homeowner, trying to get anything done here is a nightmare. Its just horrible–feels capricious, moody even. Maybe we’ll get approved for an electrical upgrade if we brought someone flowers? Geez, time to clean house in that department
Our experience with building services has left us with a stain of authoritarian overreach. We needed a building code consultant to set them strait. The leaders (not the inspectors, who are good people doing good work) are either ignorant of the job itself (transparency, professionalism, public service) or possess neither well ordered thinking nor common sense