InstantNewsWestU.com

The city has dropped its complaint against a prominent building company that was accused of willfully ignoring West U. building inspection rules after the company’s owner worked “diligently” to clear all his outstanding inspections.

This Covington-built home in on Tennyson Street had four outstanding inspections, including its tree inspection.

If Robert Covington, owner of Covington Builders, had not checked off all the outstanding inspections on 10 homes he’s built since 2000 that failed to earn certificates of occupancy, the West University Place Building and Standards Commission was poised last Thursday to consider revoking Covington’s license to work in West U. The certificate of occupancy is an important document that proves a newly constructed home is safe and meets all city building codes.

“The whole intent of that process, or in any of the processes we go through in this endeavor, is just to get builders … to finish the work required by our law,” said West U. Chief Building Official John Brown.

The Building and Standards Commission tabled another hearing on Feb. 4, telling Covington he needed to clear all his outstanding inspections within 30 days or he may lose his licence. Read more here.

Covington did not immediately return a phone message or email seeking comment, but InstantNewsWestU will update this story if he calls back. Covington’s attorney, Ron Simon, also didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment.

Brown said after the Feb. 4 hearing, Covington scheduled appointments with city inspectors and the city forester. Tree inspections were outstanding on seven of the 10 Covington-built homes without certificates of occupancy. West U. building laws require builders to replace trees they remove during construction. If the correct volume of foliage won’t fit on the lot, builders must pay into a tree fund the city uses to plant trees in parks and public spaces.

Covington scheduled one of his employees to meet with the city forester to clear the homes without tree inspections, Brown said.

“They went to them and were able to determine what trees were there, measured the inches. I gave him some credit for some of the growth inches that were there, over time,” Brown said. “He paid the tree trust the balance of money that was owed, which closed out his cases.”

Covington paid about $8,250 to the tree fund for the 82.5 tree inches that were missing on the seven outstanding properties. Before completing all the inspections, the city had estimated that Covington owed $10,300 to the tree fund.

While the city was researching building records in preparation for the Feb. 4 hearing against Covington, Brown created a list of 39 homes over the last decade that never received certificates of occupancy. Brown’s office sent letters to 10 builders on that list, informing them they needed to work with the building department to bring the homes into compliance by March 12. At this point, a majority of the builders are working with the city to clear outstanding issues, Brown said.

“We’ve had good response on that,” he said. “We’ve done some inspections. We’ve had some builders come in and schedule inspections with the homeowners, and we’ve gone on and done those. So it’s working good, just like we’d hoped.”