By John McLoone

With the growth expected in the Hastings housing market in coming years, the city is being inundated with permit requests.

“This is the same level we had when we didn’t have all these permits coming in,” City Administrator Dan Wietecha informed the City Council at its meeting last Monday night. “For them to keep up with these permits, it’s just not doable.”

Wietecha noted that there are “850 new housing starts in the works.”

“The number of permits we’ve been issuing over the last couple years have been increasing over 50 percent each year. It’s all great news, but it’s getting to the point where it’s overwhelming.”

That brought Wietecha to the inevitable conclusions: “We need to bring in some additional staff,” he said.

Wietecha’s plan to tackle the workload was to ask council approval for the following:

•Authority to hire an additional Building Inspector to get through the current construction season. •Increase the Building Inspector and Building Official wage scales by 3%.

•Provide a signing bonus and 6-month bonus for the new employee.

•Provide a one-time bonus in October for the current Building Inspectors, Building Official, and Senior Permit Tech.

•Offer a one-time buy-out of Comp Time for the current Building Inspectors and Building Official.

•Increase hours of City Hall Receptionist t0 30 hours per week for 6 months.

After discussion, the measure was approved by the council, though on a narrow vote.

Wietecha said that the deluge of permits will pay for the additional increases.

“The good news is with all these new permits come permit fees,” he said. “The five apartment complexes that are in the works, that’s $280,000 in fees. There are definitely fees in the works to cover this.”

City numbers show that the number of permits has increased dramatically in recent years. In 2019, the city issues 1,644. That jumped to 2,640 in 2020 and 3,434 in 2021. The total cost of Wietecha’s proposal was $97,593.

Councilmember Mark Vaughan said he’d go along with the plan, but not increasing current staff wage scales by 3 percent, because the city is currently undergoing a salary study.

“I don’t really support the 3 percent increase for current employees,” said Vaughan. “Until that study is done, I’d rather do a back pay on that one, because we already said no to some employees that staffed asked to raise up their wages. That got voted down.”

“I support it all because it’s connected to construction and fees, except for that 3 percent increase for current staff we have.”

Councilmember Lori Braucks said that in future measures like this should first go through the committee system prior to the City Council.

“It could have been hashed out in committee,” she said. “In the future going forward, I’d like to see a topic this large broken down in committee. That’s why we have them.”

Councilmember Tina Folch spoke in favor of the recommendation.

“I’m supportive of Dan and his recommendations. He’s trying his best to manage his staff and make sure that these important positions in our community are getting filled,” she said.

Trevor Lund favored the overall plan but not the 3 percent increase until the salary study is done.

“We made an investment of taxpayer money to do this study so that we can ensure that we have a foundational point of reference to say that position needs to have an adjustment,” he said. “Then at least we’re playing a game with the same referee in the same rulebook.”

Wietecha said time is of the essence given the competitive work environment.

“Everybody else is hiring. They’re not waiting on our study,” he said. “It’s a tough environment, and we’re going to continue to have issues coming up while trying to get through the study, and we’re going to hold tight to the study. But we’re going to find ourselves losing good employees and still having the difficulty trying to fill more positions with new employees rather than keeping good people.”

Mayor Mary Fasbender spoke in favor of the Wietecha plan. “I think Dan has done the work. We know we are urgently in need of an inspector, and we don’t want to lose anyone else,” she said. “We needed this yesterday, and so I am supportive. Dan works hard and he knows what these staff members need, and I think we have to support our staff, and he has to show support of his staff.”