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Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop
So did people read this article in Crain's this week?
One question I have is: Is the tension that preceded his departure (apparently caused by the asshat political hack previous head of the dept), and his actual 'retirement' a few months ago perhaps responsible - for what appears to me at least, as a casual - but educated long-time observer - for longer wait times/delays in building permits recently? Is there a backlog? Indecisiveness/lack of problem-solving etc with whoever(s) has attempted to fill Rahman's shoes? He was so highly regarded that dozens and dozens of developers, architects, contractors, etc, sent a letter to the city to get him back.........folks on the forum that have inside knowledge or interface with the dept of buildings, what say you? Anybody here know him personally?
Perhaps the saddest thing to me after reading the article is this: It's awfully scary that the dept is almost portrayed as hapless, inefficient, unprofessional, indecisive, inept, etc, etc, etc - without this one guy. That, if true, is really f'n scary.......or is he just such a unique talent there - someone who was so unusually able to cut through the bureaucracy and institutional/political inertia, and able to really get things done that he was an absolute rock star, etc??
Thoughts?
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^ I can definitely confirm anecdotally that something has gone awry with the Dept of Buildings. They have always been slow with plan approval, but are even slower. But the biggest issue is inspections: they are really slow with responding to inspection requests. In fact, for one particular inspection (concrete) they never responded at all! We actually just kept on working and didn't even bother with the concrete inspection.
HVAC is also slow lately.
We've had issues with them claiming we don't have permits when we actually do.
The Dept of Buildings has really gotten worse. Don't get me wrong, I actually have disliked Government employee-run organizations for the better part of my life (don't get me started about the DMV, or Chicago's Water Dept), but Buildings is palpably more problematic--ask any contractor. I think they should outsource inspections to private firms that fulfill certain standards, and simply make people pay these companies for inspections, with options to expedite inspections for a slightly higher price. In turn, the Building Dept drastically lowers the price for permits.
Right now too few of Chicago's City Departments have any accountability or oversight, and that's the scary part when you are dealing with Government. They can do effectively whatever they want. It's a horrible system, and it's also costing taxpayers too much money to sustain.