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“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.” — Charles Dickens
I’ve been hearing the stories about New Bedford’s building department — technically called Inspectional Services or Inspection Services — for years now.
All sorts of contractors — most of them nice guys as far as I know — have a palpable anger toward this vital branch of city government.
It boils down to the carpenters, plumbers, electricians — you name the workman — feeling that the city department is unreasonable, going out of its way to delay projects, nit-picking builders and developers with complaints that can add thousands of dollars and months of delays unreasonably.
What I’ve been hearing may be finally coming to a head.
Ward 6 Councilor Ryan Pereira is asking the City Council’s Committee on Internal Affairs to look into a 2022 state study that found that six complaints it received “appear to be valid, at least to some extent.” The same study, however, said “difficulties do not appear to be systemic.”
Pereira says that with New Bedford needing to ramp up its housing starts as prices escalate, it’s crucial for the city to know if there’s a problem.
I’m not sure what counts for personnel problems, what counts for systemic problems, and what counts for a problem culture, but I do know there’s probably some type of a problem in Inspections.
Arthur Hirsch in Thursday’s New Bedford Light described Councilor Pereira, whose extended family are investment property owners, as wanting more information.
“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.
Personally, I didn’t have to wait for the good councilor to say that. I’ve had workmen tell me the same for years now. “I won’t work in New Bedford. That building department is awful.”
To be fair, I’ve run into other folks who say they know how to deal with the New Bedford department. But these folks say it’s a matter of them figuring out how they do things, and then developing their own workarounds or figuring out which inspectors to deal with.
It’s not just the contractors.
In the last year, no less than three prominent local people — whose names you would all recognize if I wrote them — have told me in background conversations that New Bedford has a big problem with its inspection and permitting practices.
One of them works inside City Hall itself, one of them is high up in an agency that frequently deals with the city, and the third is a prominent businessperson, active in a variety of city ventures.
Some of them know about another so-called “study” that evidently the city got some Harvard students to do. Mayor Mitchell, of course, is a Harvard undergraduate alumni.
Calling this venture a study is generous, I think. It is not comprehensive at all in terms of its large sampling size, and it is not very longitudinal (in other words, it did not take place over a significant amount of time).
It sounds for all the world like one of those quickie studies, designed to rebut complaints on the other side of a political question.
The researchers surveyed a total of 81 people who voluntarily responded to their call for opinions. That’s one bias right there, because people who do not respond may have all kinds of different things to say, and reasons — including fear — for not responding.
The researchers interviewed just 19 people — 11 of them city officials. Of the applicants they received responses from, there were just eight: Five repeat applicants and three one-time applicants.
What could such a small study even prove?
And yet the Mitchell administration has used it to rebut the concerns of those seeking permits.
A few earnest Harvard folks talked to a total of eight people who applied for permits to Inspectional Services. That’s the determinative information?
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 same survey, 68% said they expect to have a good experience if they apply for a building permit in the future.
By the way, the city’s own website refers to this problematic department as both Inspectional Services and Inspection Services. It lists Danny Romanowicz as the head but doesn’t give him a title. Around town he’s referred to as the commissioner.
None of this inspires confidence in me.
Now, I get why New Bedford would want to have some strong standards about inspections and code enforcement. It’s a good-sized city and there has been a lot of development and redevelopment over the years, both in builds and rebuilds to the commercial as well as residential structures.
Part of it’s a clash of cultures and philosophies.
I remember one woman years ago who was required to pay a bunch of back taxes for a basement kitchen that was never permitted.
Back in 2014, we had a Standard-Times story about the City Council being concerned about Inspectional Services cracking down on so-called Portuguese kitchens in the basement. The “uma casa Portuguesa,” as they are sometimes called, often included below-ground kitchens that had never been permitted by the city.
Former City Councilor Debora Coeho once referred to the Inspections department as like the “kitchen Gestapo.”
Former Councilor David Alves, at the time, defended the inspection practices as necessary because there are safety risks from things like methane gas leaking from poor plumbing, or fires from faulty electrical wiring.
Good for Alves. But in communicating about necessary rules, it’s all about the way you do it, and the help you offer so people can understand and figure out the rules as quickly and easily as possible.
There is a reason for good building codes and good enforcement of them.
But all cities and towns have these codes, and the complaints about New Bedford, for whatever reason, seem to be much more extensive than in nearby communities. I’ve had prominent folks tell me that the reason that Fall River is experiencing more development than this city is because its building department is more reasonable.
Well, the hilltoppers may be more reasonable, or they may just be more lax. Are the building codes more efficiently administered in the Spindle City, or do they just let anything go? I don’t know.
Maybe they are just more friendly and helpful.
The state’s Office of Public Safety and Inspections report said New Bedford officials did not consistently make clear in writing requirements or why certain work was ordered.
They were also said to have failed to answer inspection questions quickly enough, and were not themselves consistently hitting the 30-day requirement for issuing a permit or giving a clear notice that more time and/or information was needed.
There were some signs of worrisome sloppiness.
According to Hirsch’s story, in one instance, the OPSI report said that “an inspector, who is no longer with the city, 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.” If that’s true, it’s clearly a conflict of interest and should never have been allowed to happen.
The folks the Harvard students quoted were anonymous, but some of them complained about issues that could be described as a failure to communicate.
Many contractors, perhaps afraid for their businesses, seem fearful of criticizing City Hall with their names attached, so some problems have no doubt gone unreported.
The news media has had the same challenge over the years getting the many folks frustrated by the city’s department to go on the record. And while they are certainly fearful of the city, they may also realize their claims are sometimes exaggerated or unreasonable.
But it seems to me that there are simply enough complaints that there must be something going on. Everyone in the media and in political circles knows about them.
Years ago, before the folks at Inspections knew me, I used to feel they were very brusque and officious when I went in there reporting. I found it hard to obtain information. But I’ve been around a long time now, and have occasionally had my own building issues and they’ve gotten much better. I do wonder what reception Joe Average Citizen receives.
One person who has not been afraid to go on the record about his frustrations with New Bedford Inspectional Services is Richard Miranda of Diversified Roofing Services in the city.
Miranda tells of the building department telling him he could not operate a sheet-metal business because it did not fit zoning. But as soon as he hired a lawyer, the objections to his plan were dropped. In other cases, zoning objections involving storm water runoff were similarly dropped, he said.
He chalks it up to Commissioner Romanowicz and thinks the council should either replace him or cut back on his powers.
Only the mayor could replace Romanowicz, and he doesn’t seem inclined. There’s no doubt the commissioner has a tough job; it’s a tough balance between too much enforcement and too little. It calls for both technical expertise and political skills.
With all the complaints about the office’s methods, it’s not clear he’s succeeding.
The biggest challenge may be a change of attitude and a better communication system, which the administration has already started with a new online system that has processed far more permits than just a few years ago.
Maybe, the office also needs a big sign that says “We’re here to help.”
Email Jack Spillane at jspillane@newbedfordlight.org.
This article confirms what I’ve heard for years. The word around the water bubbler is that it is advisable to go through a select few long-term City Councilors to get building inspection services in motion. The City would be well served by an operations audit by an independent CPA or Management advisory firm.
The City Council should take a look at the City Ordinances and by laws relating to development that make little to no sense and address those..that is where the problems come from.
Stormwater regulations & pylon sign regulations for example are abdurd.