WELLFLEET — It is common knowledge among local contractors here that getting work done in Wellfleet takes longer than it does in other towns. The difference has to do with the building department, most say, where the time it takes to get a permit can be twice as long as the state says it should take.
Staff turnover appears to be a big part of the problem. Five building commissioners have left the job in Wellfleet since 2020. Only Wellfleet’s accounting dept. has had more turnover. The town has had six accountants since 2020 (not including those working for an outside firm) and 10 in the past decade.
The building dept.’s staffing woes have not been lost on local builders. “There was a period of time when it was relatively stable and we had an inspector who had been there for some time,” said Steve Phillips, an owner of Geiger-Phillips Inc. He was talking about Justin Post, who left in the summer of 2020 to become Eastham’s building commissioner.
Then came a string of successors: Paul Fowler lasted eight months. Vincenzo Tirone succeeded Fowler for a tenure of two days, after which James Badera stepped in. Badera worked for the town for 18 months before resigning. Angelo Salamone came on board in November 2023 and was gone by August.
Victor Staley has served stints as interim commissioner during the months when the town has been without one. Staley was back at work a couple of weeks ago, coming out of retirement for the third time.
Staley said the current paperwork backlog “is not significant but is there.” He said he could not name the number of applications waiting to be approved, but he said the department is “definitely catching up.”
In Massachusetts, the state building code requires local building departments to act on permit applications within 30 days. Asked whether Wellfleet is making the state deadline, Staley said, “I think so.” But, he added, “there may be outliers.”
Several contractors who spoke to the Independent said getting a permit takes longer in Wellfleet than in other towns where they work.
“We have certainly been backed up and have experienced much longer delays than in other towns,” said Phillips. His company does most of its work in Wellfleet and Truro. What could take a month in Truro takes two months in Wellfleet, he said. “There is just no comparison between the two, once we submit an application.”
Three other contractors the Independent spoke to reported similar experiences. All of them asked that their names not be used in this article because they said they feared their permit applications would suffer as a result. One said he has been waiting for a response from the building dept. for three months.
For contractors, the holdups often mean the shuffling of jobs. “A delay of a couple months can really affect you weatherwise whether you are starting in October or December,” Phillips said. He added that contractors’ schedules are already constricted by the summer months, when many property owners are home and do not want work done.
“A deck permit shouldn’t take six weeks, but it does,” one contractor said.
But Staley said that the complexity of some jobs can slow down applications for simple ones because the department does not triage simple permits. Instead, it handles the applications as they come in.
“There may be 30 applications in line waiting to be reviewed, and 10 of those may be quick express applications,” Staley said. “But we can’t do those first because that’s not fair.”
Staley listed a number of other issues the building dept. faces. He said that Wellfleet, like most towns on Cape Cod, is experiencing a heavy load of permit applications. “There is just a lot of construction going on,” he said. “We are doing all we can.” Keeping up with evolving building and energy codes also makes the job challenging, he said.
Perhaps the steepest learning curve has to do with technology, Staley said. Last July, the town began moving its permitting system online using cloud-based software called OpenGov. The change from an on-paper system to an electronic one requires learning “not only for the office staff but also for the contractors and people out there submitting applications,” Staley said.
The town has yet to transfer existing files into the online portal, Staley said, although that could streamline permitting and allow easier access to records by other regulatory departments. “That will take a lot of time, because our files are physical and are spread throughout the building,” he said.
Town Administrator Tom Guerino told the Independent that he is assessing solutions to what he sees as “long-term issues in inspections.” One solution he has begun to explore is the possible regionalization of inspection services, he said.
