Permit Technician

Permit Technician

Are you wanting to help your community with your customer service experience? The Community Development Department is hiring for the vital role of Permit Technician. This role serves as the first point of contact for land use, permits, and code compliance, assisting the public, customers, and contractors ensuring they understand the permitting process and assisting their projects meet the various requirements. An ideal candidate will have a professional approach to providing information on requirements, while providing great customer focused service. The general working hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday Benefits include:

• Excellent medical, vision and dental benefit package for the employee and qualified family members with low monthly out-of-pocket cost. Employee-paid premium is approximately $56 per month for employee-only coverage up to a maximum of $162 per month for family coverage.
• City-paid contribution to a VEBA Trust account for out-of-pocket healthcare expenses. Currently, the annual contribution is $1,000 for employee-only and $2,000 for employee plus dependent(s).
• Paid time off including: 8 hours of vacation leave per month, with progressive increases; 8 hours of sick leave per month; 10 paid holidays per year; 24 hours of floating holiday per year.

Excellent retirement benefits including: City-paid participation in the Oregon Public Employee Retirement System (OPSRP and City pays 6% IAP contribution); City-paid 0.5% contribution into pre-tax deferred compensation plan; and other benefits such as job-related college tuition and book reimbursement, employee assistance program, basic life insurance, short-term disability, long-term disability, and flexible spending accounts for healthcare and childcare expenses.

To learn more about our organization, our community, and our benefits, click here.

General Purpose: Performs a variety of advanced duties in support of the receipt, processing, and recordkeeping functions of the Community Development and Public Works permit counter; provides information and assistance to customers in applying for and obtaining City development permits; issues a variety of permits; monitors the permit review process by routing applications and plans and tracking applications through the approval process; ensures timely processing of application requests; provides essential functions for the department's compliance program and assists with provided guidance on resolution with compliance cases; and performs related work as required.

Essential Functions/Duties & Responsibilities:

• Represents the Community Development Department in a prompt, professional, and courteous manner while continuously maintaining a positive customer service demeanor.
• Regards everyone, internal and external, as a customer and deliver the best service possible in a respectful and patient manner in person, by email, or by phone regarding technical questions and information related to development permit processes and pertinent standards.
• Assists in resolving complex and sensitive customer service issues. Maintains records and documents of customer service issues and resolutions.
• Attends and/or facilitates meetings such as development review, pre-application, training, and other meetings as assigned.
• Provides information from the City's GIS system.

General Data Management:

1. Maintains records associated with application, plan reviews, code compliance, and correspondence in accordance with record management requirements and department standards.
2. Input data from various sources and ensure the data is posted to the appropriate accounts.
3. Archive permits, plans, site plans, soils reports, engineering calculations and other pertinent information. Responsible for maintaining accuracy of archiving system.
4. Assign addresses to property in the city of Albany and inform customers of assigned addresses.
5. Produce related reports for staff, outside agencies, and customers.

Code Enforcement:

1. Intake code compliance complaints.
2. Assists in creating, processing, and archiving code compliance notices
3. Assists customers in the permitting process to resolve compliance cases
4. Provides general phone and email support for the code compliance program
5. Assists staff with other code enforcement activities, as needed.

General Duties:

1. Process applications for development and associated permits.
2. Review applications and submitted plans for completeness, with required checklists and procedures.
3. Research a wide variety of building related issues including permit activity and approved uses.
4. Reviews and ensures the appropriate fees are entered into the permitting system, in compliance with Oregon Administrative Rule and adopted fee schedules.
5. Coordinate operations of the counter including recommending procedures and practices, ensuring workflow functions smoothly, both within the Building Division and throughout the City structure.
6. Maintain Construction Contractors Board and Oregon Building Codes Division contractor information in the permitting system.
7. Create expiration letters for applicants and record correspondence on expired permits and applications.
8. Provides assistance to inspectors and plans examiners.
9. Conducts limited one- & two-family plan reviews related to scopes of work exempt from certification, as specified in Oregon Administrative Rule.
10. Assists in monitoring and review of projects as part of the division's quality control program.
11. Assists in daily inspection routing, as required.
12. Enters inspection results and code references into the permitting system, as required.
13. Represents the City of Albany by responding to the public, citizens, its employees, and others in a prompt, professional, and courteous manner while continuously maintaining a positive customer service demeanor. Regards everyone, internal and external, as a customer and deliver the best service possible in a respectful and patient manner.
14. Serves as a member of various City committees as assigned.
15. Assists other staff in the performance of their duties as assigned.
16. Maintains regular job attendance and adherence to working hours.
17. Operates a motor vehicle safely and legally.
18. May provide training and orientation to newly assigned personnel.
19. Performs other related duties as required/assigned.

Supervision/Lead Work Exercised: This is a non-supervisory position. Lead work/coordination of work of others is not a typical function assigned to this position. Incumbents in this position will provide training and orientation to newly assigned personnel.

Qualifications & Requirements:

Minimum Qualifications Education and Experience: A high school diploma or its equivalent AND Two years of experience in providing public counter assistance in a closely related field. Special Requirements:

1. Possession of or ability to obtain an Oregon Inspector Certification within six months of job placement.
2. Possession of or ability to obtain a valid Oregon driver's license and a driving record that meets the City's driving standards at time of job placement.
3. The individual shall not pose a direct threat to the health or safety of themselves or others.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities: Knowledge of Oregon Building Code and Oregon Administrative Rule governing a building inspection program. General knowledge of construction, customer service, operations of city government, modern office procedures and methods; English usage, spelling, grammar and punctuation; and basic mathematical principles. Skill in the operation of listed tools and equipment. Excellent public relations and interpersonal skills essential to acting as an ombudsman for all segments of the general public, as well as maintaining good working relations with staff. Demonstrated skills relative to code compliance, including the ability to interpret and apply policies, procedures, standards, rules, and regulations. Ability to read and understand complicated plans and specifications, work well with the public and local contractors, communicate effectively orally and in writing, quickly and accurately calculate fees and perform mathematical calculations; work both independently and as a team member; and establish and maintain effective working relationships with employees, customers, and others.

Work Environment: In the performance of the job duties, the employee will typically perform in an office environment under usual office working conditions. The noise level in the work area is typical of most office environments, with some telephones, personal interruptions, and background noises. Travel is not a regular part of this classification, with the exception of running administrative errands.

Physical Demands: The factors described herein are representative of, but not all-inclusive of, those that must be met by an individual to successfully perform the job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. The work is sedentary work which requires exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally and/or negligible amount of force frequently or constantly to lift, carry, push, pull or otherwise move objects, including the human body. Additionally, the following physical abilities are required:

• Balancing: sufficient to maintain body equilibrium to prevent falling while walking, standing or crouching. The amount of balancing does not exceed that needed for ordinary locomotion and maintenance of body equilibrium.
• Climbing: sufficient to ascend or descend light duty, multi-step stepstools