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© 2021 The Somerville Times. All rights reserved.
By Jim Clark
Discussion took place at the most recent regular meeting of the Somerville Board of Aldermen regarding reporting procedures related to unauthorized or bothersome construction activities after hours and during weekends.
Co-sponsor of the agenda item, Ward 5 Alderman Mark Niedergang, outlined several concerns brought forward by residents concerning a lack of ability to get Inspectional Services personnel to stop these activities at these times.
“There is still no reliable way for neighbors to get in touch with someone – an Inspector or an administration official – who can send an Inspector out at night or on a weekend, when Inspectors are generally not working, or on a holiday, when something is going on in a neighborhood, in a building, that’s making a lot of noise or work that should not be allowed to go on on a holiday or Sunday is happening,” Niedergang stated at the meeting. “We’ve had many discussions about this. We aldermen sometimes get called by some distraught neighbors saying ‘they’re jackhammering concrete, it’s eight o’clock Sunday morning and they’re not supposed to be working on Sunday morning, can we get an Inspector out there?'”
Niedergang pointed out that aldermen can sometimes get Inspectors to respond by calling city staff directly, but residents can only call 311, and that seldom yields results.
“They call 311 over and over again, and somehow Inspectors don’t get sent out,” said Niedergang. “That’s a problem I had hoped would be fixed by now, but I have not yet heard of a system set up so that any neighbor who suspects that an illegal building activity is going on in their neighborhood should be able to get in touch with somebody who can send an Inspector out to check that situation out.”
A second issue brought up by Niedergang concerns the opinions of many residents that live close to controversial building projects that Inspectional Services does not monitor the construction work carefully enough and does not levy fines on developers who are repeat law breakers quickly enough.
Additionally, Niedergang pointed out that there have been accusations that there has been a lack of consistency on the part of Inspectors in interpreting the building code and that mistakes are common. “This is creating confusion in the community and also among some developers,” Niedergang said.
Superintendent of Inspectional Services Goran Smiljic was in attendance at the meeting and made himself available for questions and discussion on these matters. In response to the issue of reporting unauthorized construction activities, Smiljic assured the Board and others present that ISD did recognize that there was a problem with communications, particularly during nights, weekends and holidays, when Inspectors are not on call.
Smiljic stated that meetings had taken place between himself, the Mayor’s Office, and the Chief of Police in order to establish a protocol for effectively dealing with 311 calls at these times.
“Sometimes there is a gap in communication,” Smiljic said. “It’s not that we don’t respond, it’s just that we don’t receive the complaint itself and that can sometimes be a problem.”
Smiljic assured the Board that police and ISD will be working together to respond to citizen complaint via the 311 system.
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In my experience, developers who do unauthorized work or otherwise don’t follow the regulations set forth in their building permit receive no reprimand at all. In fact, they are often rewarded by receiving further lucrative building project permits. Once the city issues a building permit, their involvement comes to a halt until they arrive to give them a Certificate of Occupancy. If abutters aren’t paying attention, the developer is free to tear up the permit with its’ conditions, and build whatever they want. No one is watching them, so it becomes incumbent on the neighbors to alert the city to any building that is not authorized by the permit. This is why people have come to the opinion that developers are getting a free pass and the residents are the ones who suffer.
Evidently problems with communication. Having weekend violations in our neighborhood, (Our block a few times). The Police were called.
Now the Police Communications have procedures that must be followed thus true emergency calls; Life threatening, robbery, etc., are top priority. Noise complaints are at the lower end of the list.] but the Dispatchers will get a cruiser to respond to your call but it may take time.
When the Police Officer(s) arrived they did shut down the contractor(s).
They also came back later to make sure the work had remained closed.
Later I asked one of the neighbor’s who had called in one of the incidents, was he okay with how it was handled, he said he was as the
violation was documented and hopefully it was forwarded to Inspectional Services by the PD so they could also address the incident.
Remember the City is required to notify abutters of work being done in
their particular Ward area so that the neighbors can either attend meetings or in writing via certified mail and inquire/object to the project.
You need help call your Alderman-Alderman@Large. Unfortunately in my personal experience I received a notice listing several locations including projects that should not, in Wards at the opposite end of the city. It FAILED TO LIST the project adjacent to my home. Remember, especially in Somerville, when the project is done so are the developer / contractor. Now the contractor that worked on this project was from the Cape.
Another problem that often comes up on weekends is when people are moving, having work done on their home, or having deliveries made. Rather than inform their neighbors that they perhaps need a space in front of their home for this, trucks arrive with no place to park and end up blocking the street or someone’s driveway. Unfortunately this becomes a police issue which shouldn’t be necessary.
Dear Ward 5 Alderman.
You say that “there have been accusations that there has been a lack of consistency on the part of Inspectors in interpreting the building code and that mistakes are common” Are you serious? Your constituents are more savvy on the building code than the inspectors? I think not.
They are union employees and there would have to be guidelines on working on weekends;
There would have to be more money in the budget.
The SPD can be called on a noise complaint and reference the Code of Ordinances. If a contractor is working with a permit, rules say they can work 7am -7pm, Mon – Sat.
No permit, send them home, unless it is a homeowner doing work that does not require a permit.
Blanket statements are an injustice to the hard working men & women of ISD.