The latest audit of the Atherton Building Department is in, with yet more examples of “apparent violations” of town rules.
Finance Director John Johns’ 18-page report on the recent internal audit of the department’s practices was released Friday, Oct. 6. In it, he details problems that will sound familiar to anyone who’s followed the building department’s travails since the retirement of Building Official Mike Hood in June.
The department has undergone two previous internal audits, as well as a personnel investigation.
The latest audit report makes specific recommendations for improvements. A key one is a change in the management structure of town staff to increase the oversight of the building official that runs the department.
At the Wednesday, Oct. 18, meeting, the Atherton City Council is expected to review both the audit report and a proposal for revamping the building department’s policies and procedures from Gary Binger, the interim planning/building administrator.
Several of the apparent violations described by Mr. Johns involve possible misuse of the building official’s discretionary authority.
To counter such problems in the future, he recommends two possible solutions: giving Atherton’s city planner the authority to interpret and enforce Atherton municipal code, in effect making the planner’s authority equal to that of the building official; or increasing the responsibilities of a code enforcement officer to review permitted building projects and enforce the municipal code.
The report singles out four problematic properties. One project involves possible finessing of the grade calculations on a heavily sloped lot that affect the building height calculation. Instead of being measured at 31 feet, 1 foot taller than allowed, it’s 29 1/2 feet, just under the 30-foot maximum height, thanks to an unusually complex method of figuring out the average natural grade. That property also appears to exceed the maximum floor area allowed by 2,500 square feet, the report said.
Another project involves a guest house with a basement built near the property line that was approved after the City Council banned such basements. Two of the projects involve permits that should have expired but were kept current in apparent contradiction of town rules — in one case, construction is reportedly still ongoing 29 years after the permit was originally issued in 1978.
Permits are supposed to expire when there is no construction activity for 360 days.
Atherton Mayor Charles Marsala said he planned to meet with City Manager Jim Robinson and Mr. Binger to get more information about the apparent violations in the report.
Since he moved to Atherton in 1998, there’s been a great deal of change in the size and scope of building projects, Mr. Marsala said.
“Structures have gone from 3,000 square foot ranch homes to $3 million-$5 million projects, and we obviously need to modernize the way we keep on top of projects and keep records,” he said. “That’s clearly, as a town, what we need to do.”
However, Mr. Marsala said, it’s not clear to him whether all four properties singled out in the report are truly in violation of town rules. For example, Atherton officials have admitted that rules regarding basements are confusingly written and need to be cleaned up, he said.
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