Consideration and Approval of Contract:  On-Call Consulting Services for Building Permit Plan Review and Building Inspection Services

Staff is recommending the award of multiple contracts for building permit plan review and building inspection services to allow Building Safety to be able to choose which consulting firm is best suited for that type of plan review or inspection services. This will help maintain high quality customer service by providing timely plan reviews and inspections during the peak times.

Bureau Veritas North America, Inc. (Bureau Veritas) will provide on-call building permit plan review services at a rate of 55% of the total plan review fee charged by the City for standard plan reviews and 45% of the total plan review fee for structural only plan reviews. Bureau Veritas will provide on call-building inspection services billed at an hourly rate of $85/hour.

Shums Coda Associates, Inc. (SCA) will provide on-call building permit plan review services at a rate of 65% of the total plan review fee charged by the City for standard plan reviews. SCA will provide on-call building inspection services billed at an hourly rate of $60-$70/hour for an Inspector 1, $70-$80/hour for an Inspector 2 or $80-$90/hour for a senior combination inspector (depends on technical requirements of requested inspection).
 
The FY 2019 Budget for these services is $10,000.  If additional services are needed, the Planning Section will work with Budget Team to balance the budget within the division.  Both contract services are supported by fees collected by the City.

City Council Goal:
Align building codes, zoning codes and regional plan
Team Flagstaff Strategic Plan:
Priority 1 - Serve the public through quality internal and external customer service.
Priority 4 - Promote high quality of life through consistent standards, rules and regulations.

City Council awarded the most recent contract for building permit plan review services to Brown & Associates in 2013. The contract was for 3 years, with the option for 2 one-year extensions and that contract expired in March 2018.

• Approve the consultant contracts for on-call Building Permit Plan Review Services.
• Approve the consultant contracts for on-call Building Inspection Services.
• Approve a modified award of the consulting contracts in either or both service areas.
• Do not approve the consulting contracts in either or both service areas.

Building Safety utilizes on-call consulting services during times where the City experiences a high volume of plan review submittals and staffing vacancies in order to meet plan review timelines mandated by the state.

On January 7, 2018, Purchasing posted a Request for Proposals solicitation for Professional Services on the City’s PlanetBids website, and published an advertisement for the solicitation in the Arizona Daily Sun on January 7, 2018. On January 28, 2018, the City received five proposals from consultant firms. A five-member selection committee reviewed and evaluated the proposals. Based on numerical results, the committee identified the top scorers for recommendation of award. Below are the evaluation results for each service area.

Building Permit Plan Review
Brown and Associates – 443
Bureau Veritas –  457
Safebuilt – 441
SCA – 447
Stantec - 416
 
Building Inspection
Brown and Associates – 327
Bureau Veritas - 343
Safebuilt – 20 (service was not available)
SCA – 353
Stantec – 181 (service was minimal)

Building Safety has historically used on-call consulting services for building permit plan review and building inspections in order to maintain required permit review timeframes and timely inspection services. The Building Safety program has recently been inundated with a series of retirements and staff changes. Staff is required to meet state mandated timelines for building permit plan review. These consulting contracts provide additional resources so that Building Safety can adequately serve the public need for building permit review and inspections while meeting state mandated timelines.

The consulting fees paid for third-party building permit plan review and building inspection services are paid from the application fees collected for plan review and building permits. The amount of contracted services has varied from year-to-year depending on the volume of plan review and permit applications and staffing vacancies. The current budget allocates $10,000 for consulting services, however, as with past budget years, staff anticipates exceeding this amount, which are paid from service fees collected in excess of budgeted revenues for those fees.

The past consultant contract required that the City pay Brown & Associates 65% of the plan review fee. During fiscal year 17/18 we contracted for $387,460 in plan review services.  The past fiscal year was unusual in that at one point we had no plan reviewers on staff and all plans were sent out.  Staff believes the amount of contract services will be reduced due to having all three positions filled and the addition of the Permit Technician position. However, staff anticipates an ongoing need based on the current volume of plan review and permit applications and staff time required to adopt the 2018 suite of codes.

Contracting for building permit plan review and building inspection services allows the City to maintain a high level of customer service and meet published review times.

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