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Old Saybrool Building Dept. Staff Train on Municity

On Jan. 29, the Town Building Department ended use of the old spreadsheet-based permit tracking system. The same day, professional staff from Municity were at Town Hall doing the work needed to migrate historical permit data from the old system to the new cloud-based Municity

system. And on Feb. 1, Building Official Tom Makowicki and the two administrative clerks, Bridget Riordan and Rebecca Zychowski, got to test the system and its capabilities in their first official training session.

Internal staff training and testing of the new Municity system will continue for the next few months. Only when staff are comfortable with its use—and confident the historical permit data on the town’s parcels is accurate—will outside users gain access to it.

To make sure that the permit data transferred from the spreadsheet system to the new cloud-based system is as accurate as possible, Riordan, Zychowski and Makowicki have spent the past four months closing out old open permits. Through phone calls to property owners and file reviews, the team has closed out about 2,000 of the older open building permits.

“The two administrative assistants that are helping me have done fabulous work to help close-out the open permits and tie up loose ends,” said Makowicki. “They are smart and incredibly talented.”

A new state law that became effective in January has aided the department in its work. The law allows town building departments to close-out open permits that are nine years old or more without an on-site inspection if closing them would not be considered a safety issue. Permitted projects that might qualify include roofs, siding, replacement windows, and decks (as long as the zoning permit is also closed).

Usually, if building permits remain open years after the work is done, it’s because once a deck is built or the siding replaced, the property owner doesn’t call the Building Department to ask for a final inspection. The goal of this final check is to make sure the work in a manner consistent with the permit application and its associated drawings. If the inspection confirms it was done as promised, the building permit is closed.

Thanks to the staff’s work to close-out old permits, the parcel-specific data that will migrate from the old system to the new, should be accurate and up to date.

Having an accurate record of each property’s owner’s parcel history is important. In the Municity system, each parcel record will include the assessor’s field card data, listings of zoning approvals, and the permit history of any dwelling or structure on the property.

“When I open up a parcel record, I will see its history,” said Mackowicki.

Having an accurate history of each parcel over time is especially important for properties in a flood zone. When a proposed project on a dwelling in a flood zone would lead the cumulative changes to tally to 50 percent or more of the dwelling’s assessed value, flood compliance rules are triggered. This proposed project then could require that to gain approval, a home would need to be raised above the flood elevation. Determining if a proposed project, when added to the value of prior work, would exceed the 50 percent threshold requires a detailed review of a dwelling’s permit history.

By last week, town staff should for the first time have access to all of this information instantly by calling up the Municity parcel record.

Going forward, Mackowicki will enter the results of field inspections directly into the Municity system using a computer tablet. Applicants will no longer need to call to Town Hall to find out the results—instead, a email is generated with the results. Applicants will know the outcome of inspections almost in real time.

Once town staff is confident in the system’s accuracy, contractors and permit applicants will be able to file applications, pay permit fees, and track permit status through their home computers.

Riordan (at 30 hours per week) and Zychowski (at 20 hours per week), support several town departments’ work, dividing their time between the Building Department, the fire marshal, and the First Selectman’s Office, as needed.