Lafourche permit office tries to stymie

Almost a third of the way through its first year in existence, the Lafourche Parish Department of Planning and Permitting has launched a public relations campaign to offset growing criticism.

The campaign slogan, “Before you build it, get a permit,” was unveiled at a building code seminar held at the Mathews Government Complex last week.

“We’re not here to hinder people; we’re here to help people,” Frank Morris, the department’s director, said multiple times throughout the nearly 2.5-hour seminar.

The department’s critics say the office fails to communicate the specific steps needed to bring construction plans into compliance with building code, and the single, central office location requires builders from the southern and northern ends of the parish to expense time and resources on their repeated trips seeking clarification.

Morris contends his office is doing its job by enforcing code regulations and said the department references any unsatisfied codes in a letter during its plan review process.

But most local builders don’t own a set of code books, which, when stacked, are 3 to 4 feet tall, said Robby Gisclair, a contractor sales manager at Dufrene Building Materials.

“Obviously, you’re paying this service to have a plan review, so we want a plan review,” Gisclair said. “Not just a plan submitted back with a general letter. There is nothing specific about your plan, your permit, your issues…. We have

at work. We are basically a library. We open them up to our customers."

An unhappy resident compared the current permit office to South Central Planning and Development Commission, the entity that used to handle the parish's building code inspection. He said South Central marked up actual design plans with notes indicating necessary changes.

After the seminar, Morris said the method his department uses cuts down on repetition when someone submits multiple sketches. "The reason we do it is because we have more than one set of plans, and that means you have to write on the plans twice. By doing it in letter form, it's a document and we attach it to the plans."

Gisclair said contractors and private builders complain of the parish permit office at his place of work each day, and he's noticed a negative impact on business.

"It's just to the point to where it's getting frustrating for us," Gisclair said. "It's hurting the building [companies]. It's hurting all the way down to the furniture stores, to the electricians because nobody wants to build, because they don't want to deal with the permit office."

Another qualm, expressed by Councilman Daniel Lorraine, is the lack of a permit office in the northern and southern-most reaches of the parish.

Coupled with the fact that Lafourche Parish Government does not operate on Fridays, builders are forced to make repeated trips to Mathews on Monday through Thursday and have to carve out time around their work schedules to make the drive.

"We need to have a permit office in south Lafourche and one in Thibodaux," Lorraine said. "This is the worst the [permit process] has been since I've been a councilman."

Lorraine said the parish once had three permit offices, one in each region, until current parish President Charlotte Randolph began her first term in 2004.

Randolph said she fears spreading the department too thin, but the parish will consider expanding to the north and south in the future. The parish has six of the state's 34 certified permit technicians.

Morris said builders don't always have to make the trip to central Lafourche. Instead, he said he has staff available at all times to answer questions over the phone. "We're a phone call away. People email me a plan every day. With the Internet, there's no reason why people can't email plans if they've got questions. I've been doing that for years."

Randolph said at last week's parish council meeting that the department has issued 240 building permits in 2011.

Morris scheduled an impressive cache of speakers to address Lafourche residents at the seminar: State Fire Marshal Butch Browning, Louisiana Department of Insurance Commissioner James J. Donelon and two representatives with FEMA's Louisiana Recovery Office. The speakers answered questions about codes and stressed the importance of maintaining a stable community in a flood-prone area.

Some residents have expressed frustration with the stricter code policy, a mirror image of the International Code Council that the state adopted in 2006, but it must be adhered to or the parish could face FEMA-directed increases in flood insurance premiums.

Donelon said the "statewide building code put us on the path to recovery."

Issues have plagued the parish's permitting procedures dating back to 2007, when FEMA began a more than 3-year community inspection. Citing variances, FEMA directed higher flood insurance premiums.

Since that time, the parish cut ties with South Central Planning and Development after South Central's Chief Building Official reported the parish to the State Code Council for granting permits without his approval in late 2008 and early 2009.

After the split, the parish council approved the creation of the Planning and Permitting Department and the hire of Morris.

State Fire Marshal H. "Butch" Browning speaks at a building code seminar at the Lafourche Parish Government Complex. Browning said 80 percent of the state's inspections each year are on existing structures in his address to Lafourche residents on the importance of adhering to mandated building codes. ERIC BESSON