Last Tuesday the Manitowish Waters Town Board Of Supervisors held a public hearing on a proposal to extend Uniform Dwelling Code inspection requirements that presently apply to one and two family dwellings to accessory buildings and detached garages over 200 square feet. I felt this expansion of the ordinance was unwarranted and offered the following testimony at the hearing:
"The proposal to extend Uniform Dwelling Code inspection requirements to detached garages and accessory buildings over 200 square feet should die right here, tonight. The Uniform Dwelling Code and associated inspection requirements were designed and are mandated to be applied to one and two family dwellings constructed after June 1st, 1980, hence the term dwelling in the title. It was not and is not intended to be a comprehensive building code to be applied to all types and classes of structures. The Town Board of Manitowish Waters previously elected to apply UDC requirements to all additions of year-around living space to all structures regardless of age – which is already beyond state requirements, but allowable – and now you want to take it to a place where it was never meant to go.
Reasons why this proposal is a bad idea:
1. It’s excessive. You are trying to kill a fly with a hammer. My understanding – admitably all hearsay – is that you are attempting to respond to one alleged incident in another county. What evidence is there that this addition to the ordinance is necessary in Manitowish Waters? The code of ordinances for our 700 person community is already quite extensive and probably no one in the community is conversant with the code in its entirety. Why add more complexity when we have no evidence that we are even addressing a problem? Why heap more costs on someone who just wants a small 12X18 building to house a boat or snowmobile? This can be characterized as a local version of an unfunded mandate.
2. It’s unnecessary, for the same reasons just stated. Plus, we have a rather comprehensive zoning ordinance, a zoning department, a plan commission, a board of appeals, and the added layers of county zoning and sanitary ordinances and state shoreland zoning. What could possibly arise concerning accessory buildings that couldn’t be addressed by what we have in place? You have apparently already allowed a situation to develop wherein the UDC inspector is judge, jury, and executioner on perceived UDC violations. You want to compound that mistake?
3. It’s inappropriate. By that, I mean that it is an inappropriate remedy for whatever problem you think might exist. Detached garages and accessory buildings are not dwellings. The UDC code is not designed to be applied to them. What code would the inspector use? Even if you did require these buildings to be inspected, there is no legal requirement to use a UDC certified inspector to inspect them. Nor, for that matter, do you need a UDC inspection of non-living space additions to dwellings built before June 1st, 1980 – but that is another issue. Excessive, unnecessary, futile, and inappropriate – let’s stick to the intent of the state Uniform Dwelling Code."
Following my comments, our local UDC inspector spoke in favor of the proposed revison, while several more citizens spoke against it. During the town board meeting following the hearing, the board members had little to say about the topic before they voted to not proceed with the ordinance revision at this time. I assume that they will want to examine the issue further before they bring it back, if they ever do -- hopefully not. In our small community we should save new or expanded regulations for situations where the community agrees that the need really does exist.
After the hearing, the reporter for the Lakeland Times asked for a written copy of my comments, which I provided. Later I got to thinking about that and I started worrying about my "judge, jury, and executioner" comment. I was engaging in a bit of hyperbole there and now I am afraid it is going to end up as a featured comment in the newspaper story. Gotta learn to be smarter about these things. I continually have to remind myself that one rarely gets into trouble by keeping the mouth shut.