WeHa Council Mulls Hiring Additional Staff To Handle Building Boom

WEST HARTFORD, CT — A veritable building boom in West Hartford has local officials looking to add staff at town hall to handle the increased inspection and municipal application workload.

That's why the West Hartford Town Council Tuesday, Feb. 14, will vote on a resolution to appropriate some $195,251 to hire two staffers in the West Hartford Department of Community Development office.

The meeting is at 7:30 p.m. at West Hartford Town Hall, 50 S. Main St., West Hartford.

The council's finance and administration committee discussed the matter Feb. 6, sending it for a full council vote for Feb. 14.

West Hartford Town Manager Rick Ledwith said many residents are taking advantage of low interest rates and engaging in home improvement projects at a time where new business and commercial developments are also sprouting up throughout the town.

This has resulted in town hall being besieged with building permit applications and inspection requests, he said.

"This resolution would allow us to provide our community development department with much-needed support," Ledwith said at last week's subcommittee meeting.

He said the town has s four-week backlog of inspections/permit requests and it is looking to catch up, with the delays leading to complaints piling up at the town manager's office from residents and contractors.

Ledwith said, ideally, it should take a week between application and inspection.

"We have been experiencing a significant increase in large development projects throughout town as well as significant increases in residential projects," Ledwith said.

"We've been at the point now where we're unable to keep up with the demand, quite simply."

Town officials are hoping the new positions would allow for these to be processed in a more timely manner.

To show just how busy its been at town hall, Ledwith said in 2021, there were about 11,000 inspection requests.

He said in the past 12 months, however, that figure is now 12,584 spread out among no additional staff.

The new positions would be for a building inspector, as well as a senior planner, both working within the town's community development department.

Ledwith said the funding would come from the town's expired tax payments account for this fiscal year, so no borrowing is required.

The need for the planner positions is driven by increased commercial development in town, as town land-use boards require help from the planning office as they navigate increased applications, Ledwith said.

"When you look at all of the development that is happening around town right now, the amount of development going on right now far surpasses even what we did back when Blue Back Square was coming online," Ledwith said.

The subcommittee supported the request, sending it to the full council for final approval.

Deputy Mayor Liam Sweeney, the subcommittee chairman, said properly addressing such development will lead to grand list growth and further municipal revenue.

"I think there is an expression that it takes money to make money and I think, right here, is money that we need to make an investment in order for us to continue to have our town tax rolls grow at a safe rate," Sweeney said Feb. 6.

"It doesn't seem that development is going to slow down too much right now," he said. "We have to continue to catch lightening in a bottle."

Sweeney said he doesn't want the town to overwork the staff and leave West Hartford.

For the agenda of the Feb. 14 West Hartford Town Council meeting, click on this link.

For more details on the proposal, click on this link and scroll to Page 7.