County discusses building permits

Published 11:00 am Saturday, June 24, 2023

Limestone County has experienced explosive growth during the past several years with new homes, apartments and neighborhoods popping up throughout the county, especially in the eastern portions of the county. In 2022, more than 2,300 lots were approved by the Limestone County Commission, with 77 percent of them located in District 2.

During their Tuesday, June 20, work session, the Limestone County Commission discussed the possibility of implementing building permit requirements, although at that time, no action was taken on the matter.

“I think we need to take a serious look at this. With our growth, there’s some pros and cons. I think this has been needed for a while. I would like it to be as least intrusive on a homeowner as possible and maybe limit it to habitable structures, meaning it has electricity, water and sewer to it,” District 2 Commissioner Danny Barksdale said.

“From a safety stand point with all the people moving in here, I think we need to look at that,” he said.

Chairman Collin Daly weighed in on the topic saying average projects such as a bathroom remodel, adding a deck or other project under a certain amount of material shouldn’t require a building permit.

“There is precedence for that,” county engineer Marc Massey said. “In the surrounding counties and cities that do have it, they have a level where it’s a DIY situation, or under so many square feet, or under a certain dollar figure for materials; there are things like that where it doesn’t hinder the average homeowner from doing work on their home.

Massey thought being too intrusive would be the wrong direction, but does see existing situations that are concerning.

“A homebuilder, maybe not intentionally, something was missed where if another set of eyes had been on it, it may have been remediated before the house actually got sold,” Massey said. “The counties that are around us that have them in place, and the cities around us and within Limestone County that have them in place, they’ve got some things in place that limit it to new construction or major changes to the structure of the home or to the mechanical or plumbing of a home. They try to limit those things. I think it only makes sense to try to follow suit if that is the direction that the commission did choose to go.”

Barksdale has received complaints from those who have recently bought homes and had problems and worries that lack of regulations and oversight is attracting shoddy work.

“The reason a lot of the developers and builders are moving in here is because we don’t have any type of oversight, “ he said. “None, other than subdivision regulations. As far as building the home, in Madison County, a home has to go through four inspections before it is approved.”

“I just think we should have minimal inspections,” he said.