San Juan County stops issuing new Bluff building permits; town told to stand up building department

San Juan County has stopped issuing new building permits for the town of Bluff, and the town must develop local permitting procedures and a building department, town officials told the Bluff Planning and Zoning Commission at its March 6 meeting.

Town council member Lou Anne Hook said San Juan County provided short notice that it will not issue any more building permits for Bluff and that the town needs to “get up to speed” on a local building department and building code. Town Manager Erin Nelson told the commission the county will continue to process applications already accepted and for which fees were paid but is not taking new applications. “We're not issuing any other permits, and it's on the town to, handle everything with that,” Nelson said.

The commission discussed immediate next steps and outstanding questions. Nelson said accepted applications and paid permits will be handled by the county “pretty much until the end of the year,” and that the technical permit expiration (a typical 365-day permit period) will still apply; applications that have been submitted but not accepted will not be processed by the county. Amanda Podmore, commission chair, and other commissioners said they will request a final list of active permits from the county so the town knows which projects remain in process.

Commissioners and council members said the town will not need to write a wholly new code from scratch; they discussed adopting the International Building Code (IBC) references to build a local permitting framework more quickly. Hook said the town and council are looking at using standard code references to avoid months of drafting.

The meeting also covered near-term infrastructure and planning items tied to the building-permits change. Jones & DeMille was invited to present a schematic design for the Old Highway rehabilitation and related sidewalks; Hook quoted an estimate of $1,200,000 for the schematic and initial work. Commissioners also discussed a recent temporary repair on the town road to the pond: the surface had been filled but still carries traffic cones while engineering and formal bidding continue.

Commissioners asked town staff to obtain the latest road map that was submitted to the state and to confirm whether the state has finalized any changes. Nelson said she can provide the original approved map the town has been using and will follow up on the status of a more recent submission. She also urged commissioners to collect lists of outstanding applications to help the town transition permitting quickly.

Commissioners said the loss of county permitting capacity makes the planned joint work session with the town council more urgent; they scheduled options for a multi-hour joint work session to coordinate town code, enforcement and permitting responsibilities. The commission also discussed enforcement ordinance work currently tracked in a spreadsheet and volunteer assignments to review specific town ordinances to identify enforcement gaps.

What happens next: Erin Nelson will follow up with the county and provide clarifying information about which active permits the county will finish and the status of the town’s road map submission to the state. Commissioners planned to raise permitting and enforcement questions at a joint work session with the town council the week of the commission’s March 20 meeting.