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Frostburg hires community development staff; smoke-detector code discrepancy flagged for council review
Summary
Community Development reported 9 permit applications in October, completion of housing and community-facilities elements of the comprehensive-plan rewrite for internal review, and that many failed rental inspections are tied to a smoke-detector interconnectedness wording discrepancy—staff estimate about 80% of the flagged failures relate to that issue and will bring a recommended code fix to council next month.
Community Development told the Frostburg mayor and council on Nov. 18 that the department received nine permit applications in October, including two new single-family houses, issued a commercial use-and-occupancy for a hair salon on West Main Street, and completed 73 rental-unit inspections in October (16 reinspections).
Staff said two larger projects were among the October permits and that the consultant working on the comprehensive-plan rewrite has provided the housing element and, most recently, the community facilities portion. Steering-committee members and planning commissioners have the housing element for review; the next steering-committee meeting is scheduled for Dec. 5.
Council and staff discussed a recurring code-enforcement issue related to smoke-detector "interconnectedness." The department said many inspections marked as "failed" are effectively pending while staff and council consider whether local code language (an apparent extra word added when the local code was updated) sets a higher standard than the international codes; staff estimated roughly 80% of the failed items were linked to detector interconnectedness. Council asked staff to return with a clear recommendation next month so the matter can be resolved administratively rather than leaving units in an indeterminate status.
Council welcomed new hires to the department: John Miller as community development director and Erica Beeman as rental housing program coordinator. Staff said both are onboarding and the department is now at full staffing levels for those functions.
"Of those 73, 16 were reinspections," staff said in reporting unit counts, and later added, "probably about 80% of those" failed markers were due to smoke-detector interconnectedness issues.
