City of Portsmouth Inspections Department at Full Strength, Suspends Interim Third-Party Inspections

City Manager Karen Conard announced that the City Inspections Department is suspending the interim use of third-party inspectors thanks to diligent work since the hiring of Portsmouth Chief Building Inspector Shanti Wolph to catch up on the inspection backlog.

Since Wolph’s arrival three months ago, the Inspections Department has completed 1,712 inspections and is now working with a full team of three Building Inspectors, two Plumbing/Mechanical Inspectors and one Electrical Inspector process permit applications in a timely and efficient manner. As a result, the policy allowing for third-party inspectors, which was adopted in 2021, is no longer needed. Applicants should use the ViewPoint portal for all permit applications and schedule inspection appointments as normal.

The Inspections Department has also instituted some new practices, including adding property owners’ contact information to all permitting applications, in order to keep those owners informed of the progress of their projects throughout the City approval process.

As Chief Building Inspector Wolph reported in a memo shared with the City Council at their February 7, 2022 meeting, “When I arrived on December 6, 2021, there was a substantial backlog of outstanding permits both residential and commercial. The Inspections team and I have made solid process in reducing that backlog as well as identifying and issuing permits for complex projects that required detailed plan reviews and dialogue with the applicants. Moving forward, the City’s Viewpoint online permitting portal that all project applicants use allows me to study the analytics/metrics of the Department’s fees, expenditures and inspections. We will be using this tool and others to look for efficiencies and improvements for all users of the portal.”