Customer Compliance Difficulties

Fairfax County’s Department of Environmental Management (DEM)* wanted to assist customers, specifically homeowners, to comply with the building code provisions for typical homeowner construction projects.

SOLUTION:

Handouts in Lieu of Submitting Plans

DEM makes plan details and related tables available to customers via handout and download from the County website. If the customer’s project falls under the parameters of these plan details, a plan review is not necessary.

DESCRIPTION:

Using a Computer Aided Drafting and Design (CADD) workstation, the Building Plan Review Staff has developed a series of handouts containing plan details and related tables for typical homeowner construction projects such as decks, sheds, finished basements, detached garages, retaining walls, and carport enclosures. These handouts can be used in lieu of a plan submission, eliminating the need for a plan review. Copies of the handouts may be obtained at the County’s Permit Information Desk or may be downloaded from the DEM website, located at http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/living/publicworks/default.htm. Enclosed in the program documentation is the brochure on decks, downloaded directly from the DEM website.

If the work that the permit applicant is planning on doing fits within the parameters of the handout, then a permit is issued with the designation, "per County detail." In some cases, applicants will use the information in the handouts simply to assist them in their own designs. The documents contain the correct sizes of structural members, connection details and general code compliant design elements, as well as County review procedures and pertinent telephone numbers.

Problems do occur when the applicants make deviations from the handouts. Some homeowners will make what they feel are simply aesthetic changes to the design, such as a different guard rail configuration, but do not realize that the rail was designed to meet specific loading requirements. These deviations require a plan submission, review, and in some cases, a field modification to bring the element into conformance with the code.

In some instances, it is not possible to cover all of the variations that may occur with the use of a specific handout. A customer may use a handout in lieu of a plan submission only later to find unique circumstances that were not foreseen during the development of the handout. Special details need to be submitted by the customer to address those circumstances.

RESULTS:

The benefits of this program far outweigh any of the minor problems. Thousands of permits are issued each year using these handouts. Every time one is used, one less plan review is performed by staff, saving hundreds of staff hours and shortening the amount of time that customers spend obtaining a permit. The inspectors are also familiar with all of the information used on the details, making inspection quicker and easier.

Although originally designed to assist homeowners, the handouts have become so popular that many contractors use them on a regular basis. Also, several neighboring jurisdictions have used the handouts to help establish similar programs of their own.

The use of technology such as CADD and computer-based word processing has allowed DEM to easily update existing handouts, and DEM is continually expanding the application of the program. Making the material available on the DEM website is a recent enhancement that has been well received by customers. This saves them a trip to the DEM offices, which in some cases can take nearly an hour of travel time in each direction.

It costs DIS (in real dollars, adjusted for inflation) less to issue a permit, review a plan, and perform an inspection now than in 1988. Establishing this program, in conjunction with other customer service initiatives, has meant that it would cost the County $1.5 million less today to handle the 1988 workload than it did 10 years ago.

EVALUATION BY STREAMLINING COMMITTEES:

• The program reduces time and costs;
• It is understandable and thorough;
• Useful for all size jurisdictions.

• Some of the handouts may be too long.

The Streamlining Committees designated this program as a streamlining tool without modifications.

This program was implemented by administrative action of DEM. Start-up costs were mainly in the form of staff time used to develop the handouts. Each handout took approximately 4-5 days of total time for initial development and then a couple of hours every few years to make updates for code changes. The CADD software cost about $200 and was used on existing personal computers. The printing of the material is done at the County print shop and by using standard office copiers, costing $1500 in order to distribute over 15,000 handouts annually.

FOR MORE INFORMATION OR ASSISTANCE IN CONSIDERING THE USE OF THIS MODEL, PLEASE CONTACT: