That the City Council approve and authorize the City Manager to enter into three, three-year agreements with True North Compliance Services, Inc., Transtech Engineering, and VCA Code, to provide professional building plan check, grading plan check, and building inspection services on an as-needed basis.

The City’s Building, Safety and Code Enforcement Division ("Division") is responsible for the review of construction plans and, once approved, the inspection of permitted work. The Division currently uses a combination of full-time in-house staff and contract consultants on an as-needed basis for plan checks and inspection services. The City has utilized contracts for these types of services with True North and Interwest since 2020. Both contracts are set to expire in June 2023; therefore, in March 2023, staff released a Request for Proposals (RFP) to solicit proposals from companies who provide these types of services. After reviewing 11 proposals that were submitted in response to the RFP, staff is recommending establishing new professional services agreements for this type of work with True North, Transtech Engineering, and VCA Code.

The City has a practice of utilizing outside consulting services to review most building plan checks. While some plan checks are conducted by in-house staff, the City does not currently employ a Plans Examiner, so most plan checks are assigned to outside firms for review. These outside specialists perform building and grading plan checks for various residential, commercial, and industrial projects. Outsourcing these projects supports the City’s goals of providing timely and quality customer service by meeting deadlines for projects and by providing professional technical building expertise to homeowners, businesses, and developers. The Division's goal is to provide efficient, accurate and timely plan check turnarounds within 10 business days in order to offer a streamlined permit issuance process.

The outsourcing for building inspection services is only necessary when needed, as the Division currently has two full-time building inspector positions. The City typically receives approximately 14 to 30 inspection requests per day and has a goal of providing inspections within 24 hours of receiving a request for such services.  The average volume of seven to 15 inspections assigned to each staff inspector generally allows for adequate time to perform safety inspections; however, in some cases it is necessary to retain an outside contract inspector to provide the needed inspection assistance.

Since the consulting services agreements with True North and Interwest are set to expire at the end of this fiscal year, staff released an RFP to solicit proposals from consulting firms who provide building and safety services. The City received 11 proposals and each was evaluated by staff, with three chosen as the top firms that best meet the needs of the City. Having three firms available on an on-call basis will provide flexibility and sufficient support to ensure that plan checks and inspections are occurring on schedule.

The proposals were evaluated based on the qualifications of the firm, versatility in plan check specialty, and the fee proposal. Based on this criteria, True North, Transtech Engineering, and VCA Code were deemed the most suitable choices due to their competitive hourly rates, versatility in plan check specialty, and review turnaround time. The City has been utilizing services from True North and staff have indicated that their work product and responsiveness has been satisfactory. Staff also contacted references for Transtech Engineering and VCA Code, who similarly indicated satisfaction with the services provided by these companies.

Based on the results of the evaluations, staff recommends that the City Council approve and authorize the City Manager to enter into three-year agreements with True North, Transtech Engineering, and VCA Code to provide professional building plan check, grading plan check, and building inspection services on an as needed basis. The City Attorney’s office has reviewed the attached agreements.

The costs for contract building plan check and grading plan check services will vary depending on the frequency that the services are utilized. Costs related to these services, when incurred, will be charged to project applicants at the time the services are provided and will be consistent with the established Fee Schedule, as approved by the City Council.