Real Estate Show with Medford Building Department

Full Video Transcript Below

Real Estate Show Interview with Medford Planning Department

Alice Lema: [00:00:00] Well, good morning, Southern Oregon. Welcome back to the Real Estate Show. So glad you could join us today. Boy, we have a great show for you. Today. We get to talk to two of my favorite people from the city of Medford Building and Safety Department. We have Kimberly London and Chad Wilrout joining us today, and we're gonna ask him all kinds of things.

Gonna start talking about what happened in 2022. We wanna talk about what's coming in 2023. There's so many code changes and procedures. We've got the commercial codes that were adjusted recently. So lots and lots to talk about with Chad Wiltrout and Kimberly London city of Medford Building and Safety.

We're so happy they could join us today. Before we bring them in and start chatting. Wanna give you quick update on our local statistics. Josephine County Days on market, that's the average number of days it takes to sell a home. Josephine County is still [00:01:00] sitting in the fifties. Josephine County 56, Jackson County, 49 days, and Klamath Falls 49.

Still watching week to week, looks kind of the two month mark. Our average prices, Josephine County this week is coming in $447,000. Jackson County is coming in average home price. $491,000 and Klamath Falls is coming in at an average home price of 312,000. Just a reminder, these are residential, single family home averages.

I also wanted to brag a little on our Southern Oregon real estate market. Josephine County year to date has sold 510 million dollars worth of residential property. Jackson County has sold 1.5 billion [00:02:00] in residential sales. House sales this year in Klamath Falls has sold 322 million. That's year to date.

So here we are in November. We've got strong. We're still selling houses right around two month mark, and the prices are still up a little. Just, just when you think it can't get any stranger. There you go. So, let's take a quick break from our sponsors and bring on our guests today we have Kimberly London.

Well, good morning, Southern Oregon and welcome back to the Real Estate Show. So glad you could join us again today. I'm Alice Lima. I'm a broker here in beautiful southern Oregon with John Scott Real Estate, and today I get to talk to two of my favorite people from the city of Medford building department.

We have Chad Wiltrout and Kimberly London. Thank you guys so much for joining us.

Kimberly London: Thank you.

Chad Wiltrout: Thank you for having us on.

Alice Lema: Yeah. Well I am so proud [00:03:00] of our city of Medford services and you guys how you run the building department is just stellar. We've got great online support, great front counter support great helpfulness. So I'm so happy you could come back and let's let you talk. Let's tell people who you are and what you do for the building Depart.

Kimberly London: Hi, am Kimberly London. I've been with the building department for almost 25 years, and I do classes at the Rogue Valley Association of Realtors continuing education classes for them. Next May is building safety month, and we're doing a big real estate agent training in May.

I believe they're just putting out the information on it, if anyone's interested or if you have specific classes, like if John L. Scott would like me to come and go over some classes, I'd be more than happy to.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's wonderful.

Kimberly London: About permit history, I mean, building permits, 1913 was our first building permit for the city of Medford, 1913. So, [00:04:00] wow. Next year it'll be 110 years.

Alice Lema: Oh, we should have a, we should have like some kind of a party.

Kimberly London: Oh, we are in May because it's 50 years of building safety month through the ic. So we're gonna do a double celebration. We're gonna do events we're, it'll be fun. So watch for stuff from the city of Medford in next May.

Alice Lema: Okay. That sounds great.

Chad Wiltrout: And I'm Chad Wiltrout. I'm the Assistant Building Safety Director. And yeah, we've got a lot going on this year. We have a couple code changes. October 1st of this year, we had a new structural code, commercial structural code that's the 2022 Oregon Structural Specialty Code.

We also had the 2022 Oregon Mechanical Specialty Code, and we have a new accessibility code, the 2017 International, A 117.1.

Alice Lema: So that's a lot.

Chad Wiltrout: There's a lot going on. A lot. That's a lot, a lot of new information. A lot of, you know we're, we're planning on at the end [00:05:00] of this year, actually, probably be the first part of next year, we'll do kinda like we did with the last code cycle. We'll do we call it a town hall, but basically it's just where we provide like a, a code change training for design professionals. Designers, contractors, basically any of our stakeholders that would be interested in something like that, they could, they could come and kind of get like the, the latest updates on the new codes that are being adopted.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's wonderful. And do you do one town hall meeting per code topic or are you doing all of them at the same time?

Chad Wiltrout: You know, we haven't always done that, but we, it seems like lately, because there's so much new information, we, we have been, it seems to be helpful to do that, especially with the energy codes. We have a lot of there's a lot going on with the energy codes these days. You know, there's mandates from the governor, that kind of stuff to try to curb climate change. And so that's really putting a You know, a burden on, on the, the Building Codes division to come up with these new [00:06:00] provisions in the code to kind of address some of those.

So we're seeing a lot of, you know, a lot of changes in our codes and so we're just trying to get the, you know, get the word out there as much as we can. You know, we try to create forms and, and operating procedures and things to help, well, to make it easier for us, but also to make it easier for the contractor just for consistency.

You know, so everybody's kind of on the same page. So one thing we do too is we, we really work pretty tightly with the other jurisdictions in Southern Oregon to kind of have uniformity with our, with our the way that we're inter, the way that we're interpreting the codes and our forms and some, our checklists and that kind of stuff.

We really work heavily, like with Grants Pass, Ashland, Josephine County, Jackson County. So we meet every other week basically to kind of go over different, you know, codes that are coming up, you know.

Alice Lema: So, so you're meeting with the building departments of the other municipalities?

Chad Wiltrout: Yes, yes.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's very good [00:07:00] idea.

Kimberly London: Jackson and Josephine County.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's very good. Yeah. And how, how do those, so every other week, that's pretty frequent.

Chad Wiltrout: Yeah. Yeah. So we do that and there's a training component to that. And then we also, you know, we just try to kind of have like a round table discussion and talk about, hey, what are you doing in your jurisdiction? Because you get a lot of conversations with, with contractors and design professionals that, you know, they'll say, hey, we've never been asked to do that before, you know, other jurisdictions, you know, and some of that, you know, is, is tongue in cheek, but, but there is some truth to that too, at times. So we try to make sure that we're working to be on the same page. So we're, we're giving a consistent interpretation, a consistent answer, you know, across Southern Oregon.

Alice Lema: So how long have you guys been doing that meeting across?

Chad Wiltrout: Well we started, it's been years, hasn't it? Yeah, it's, I think we started about four years ago maybe. And then we took a big break. You know, COVID really slowed. We kind of stopped during the whole Covid thing. [00:08:00] So maybe it's been longer than that. Maybe it's

Alice Lema: So before, but before the shutdown, you were doing that?

Chad Wiltrout: Oh yeah. Yeah. So we, yeah, we've been we've been at it for a while, so.

Alice Lema: Well, and I would think that you would get both you know, all the different municipalities and Josephine and Jackson County kind of have the similar issues.

Chad Wiltrout: Yeah. In fact, we had, at the last one here, this last Thursday, last week we, we even had someone from Hillsborough up here in Portland. So, yeah, so we get, and then we have another gal that'll be from Douglas County. She'll be joining here pretty soon. She couldn't make it last week. She had a sick kid. But she's gonna probably start here, you know, in the next, our next meeting.

Alice Lema: And is the goal the same to kind of try to have some consistency statewide? Is that what you guys are doing? Cool. That's, that's exactly. Well, we all appreciate it because it sure helps things go more smoothly and the changes are sweeping once again.

Chad Wiltrout: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. There's a lot going on. Residential and commercial.

Alice Lema: [00:09:00] Well, let's yeah, where do you wanna start? Cause we got a lot to unpack here and not much time. You wanna start with residential?

Chad Wiltrout: Okay, so the re I'll just, are you wanting to look, are you wanting to talk about what's coming up for, as far as the codes or are you,

Alice Lema: oh, we got, we wanna talk about it all. Let's talk maybe let's go back kinda what's happened 2022. We're getting ready to wrap up this year. Let's talk about what's happened so far.

Kimberly London: Yeah, actually residential, I do report every month that we put on our website, the City of Medford's website, and it's the building statistics. It's how many new residential commercial is not just brand new construction, but all commercial construction with the valuations and stuff.

And actually last month we only had seven new house permits issued. It has not, I mean, that's super low. I mean, that's. It's I did the report twice. It was [00:10:00] so low. We, yeah, we haven't had it like that since back in 2018 in December. Which it traditionally slows down in the winter, that's normal, but seven, super duper low considering in September we had 15, August we had 16. July we had 27, which makes sense the summer months.

Alice Lema: But are the contractors saying why? Is it because of the interest rates?

Kimberly London: Interest rates actually does play a lot into it because it knocks a lot of people out of being able to purchase. There are lots available, there are new subdivisions opening up. I just think possibly, I mean, we know that economic conditions, I'm not even gonna try to, you know, speculate on that. But during Covid, a lot of the construction for new development kind of if it wasn't already go ongoing, it was put on hold. And so I think those are just now starting to come back to life.

Because we do have new subdivisions for residential [00:11:00] coming up and being approved. So now we're just waiting for them to get the plan submitted. So I don't know that new housing construction, I mean, it definitely has slowed down, but I don't think it's as bad as people wanna make it.

Chad Wiltrout: Yeah. And I was, I was actually just talking to our building official this morning, and he says that he's heard from Mahar homes and from Hayden, they're projecting to continue strong through 2023.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's good.

Chad Wiltrout: They're not planning on slowing down. We also have a new player to the area, which is DR Horton. They're either the largest or the second largest construction company for developer of single family dwellings in the nation.

And they bought some, a couple subdivisions here and they're planning on dropping 10 foundations in December. Okay. So yeah, we still have act activity. Going on.

Alice Lema: Well, that's, that's really encouraging because to have a new player, especially somebody who's a bigwig on the national scene pick our area. That's very hopeful, isn't it? Yeah.

Kimberly London: Are [00:12:00] they the 3D people?

Chad Wiltrout: No.

Kimberly London: Okay. We have a 3D housing project in the works also.

Alice Lema: Is that the Spirit one? Spirit Village?

Kimberly London: Yes.

Alice Lema: Yes. I have been trying to get them to come on the show forever. Do you know them? Ooh.

Kimberly London: Give you contact information.

Alice Lema: So how about you tell us about it? Tell us what you know about the 3D Village. Cause it's super, super interesting.

Chad Wiltrout: Yeah. Well, I know that it's new. We this, the subdivision that they're, they're putting here in Grand or in Medford is the second in the nation. So they were, they were pushing hard to be the first subdivision of 3D concrete homes in the nation. But they, I guess they missed it by a few months. So it's fairly new technology. There's a couple states that have started using some of this technology. I think Texas is one of 'em, Arizona and some of those areas down and,

Alice Lema: and Florida for hurricanes.

Chad Wiltrout: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So really what it is, is you have, you know, you have a machine that is, [00:13:00] is a computerized machine that has the design in that system, and then is, there's basically a big structure.

And this thing just kind of moves on this, on this system, and it just kind of follows the layout and the computerized, you know, in the program and is basically, it's just concrete. So and we haven't really seen the design of the homes yet, but there is gonna be, there's gonna be some work to get these to meet our local design criteria.

Alice Lema: Yeah. How does all that work? We have a completely d. Technology.

Chad Wiltrout: Exactly. Well, they're not prescriptive. So prescriptive meaning that you can open up the code book and find how, you know, the nuts and bolts on how to build something. Yeah. That won't be available to them for, for these projects. So they'll have a, an engineer, a licensed design professional that kind of designs it, that meets our local criteria.

We're pretty high seismic region. Wind we're, you know, in there too. I guess it's high wind, about 95 mile an [00:14:00] hour wind speed. And so though, yeah, they'll have to design. Another big item will be the energy to meet the energy codes and stuff too, because you have concrete, so you have to do per out your walls and figure out a way to get insulation in there to create your exterior envelope. So there'll be some, some some design that goes into that. Some creativity, I'm sure.

Alice Lema: So we're talking to the city of Medford Building and Safety Department. We've got Chad Wiltrout and Kimberly London with us today. We're all over the place. We've got so much to talk about. I keep saying we gotta have you on more often.

We do have to take a, a quick. Break here. We'll be right back. We wanna say thank you to our sponsors, John L. Scott, Ashland, and Medford, also the local Rogue Valley Association of Realtors we call RVAR. And Guy Giles Mutual of Omaha Mortgage. Thanks so much for sponsoring us every week. We will be repeating this broadcast again tomorrow, on Sunday at 6:00 PM on KCMX, which is [00:15:00] moving from 880 am to 99.5 fm, just in case you didn't know. We'll be right back. Don't touch that dial well.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Real Estate Show today. We're so happy to have Chad Wiltrout and Kimberly London from our own city of Medford Building and Safety Department. Thanks for being here guys.

 So right before the break we tangented slightly just because the 3D technology is such a big deal and we actually have a project starting in Medford. Do you have any dates? Do we know much about how that process is going? Because it's a completely new technology. Yeah,

Chad Wiltrout: I, I personally don't know when they're planning on submitting plans. I, I have talked to their design professional mm-hmm. , and he mentioned something, I think first part of the year they were gonna start submitting some plans, but I'm not a hundred percent sure on that. So my guess is it'll be sometime next year.

Alice Lema: Well, it's so exciting. We're so [00:16:00] proud to have 3D technology in Southern Oregon.

Kimberly London: Yeah, yeah. It'll be coming next year. I've spoken with them a couple times Also on this middle procedure, how long the process takes. Inspections, costs, so they're, they're down to, they're fine tuning it and I think we're gonna start seeing some plans coming in early.

Alice Lema: Yeah. The inspection process, that's an interesting question,

Kimberly London: Yeah. Yeah. You can actually, for the City of Medford, a lot of people don't know this, but you can call in your inspections, you can go onto our city's website and schedule your inspections and now we can text, we have the texting capability. I know we just got it. It's about a month old and it's working really well.

I've had favorable responses. I can use it, so I know it's not rocket science and it'll text you back and let you know the status of your inspection so you're not logging in online. That is the status of it. Or going out to the job site and [00:17:00] looking at your job card. You know, just not sure. So that's, that's actually something fairly new. That's really exciting.

Alice Lema: Good for you guys. Really. Yeah. I love how forward thinking you are. You were one of the first people I think to have such a sophisticated website, weren't you? For such a small population. Isn't Med City of Medford's website considered very robust?

Kimberly London: I think it is. Yeah. There's some, we are changing it. We are getting a new system for checking permit history and scheduling inspections. That's gonna come next year. We're testing it right now. I'm hoping it has more functions and features than our current system. There's quite a few things that are missing.

Real estate community, you know, I've jotted down the notes loud and clear what they'd like to see on that website, and I'm hoping we can, you know, get it together and bring it to fruition early next year. Yeah. Like actually what's going on when you look up permit history, you know, it just says remodel.

It would be nice to know what [00:18:00] was remodeled. Right. Yeah. So just little things that are, it's there but not enough to get somebody where they wanna go. But you can almost do a public records request.

Alice Lema: Right. Right. But that's so consumer oriented. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Wiltrout: While we're on the subject of remodels, we are actually getting ready to start a remodel of our front office.

Alice Lema: Oh yeah. Oh, you are.

Chad Wiltrout: Yeah. Yeah, it's gonna definitely be, it's gonna look different. It's gonna have a different feel. Yeah. There'll be windows for each. There'll be some walls basically for safety, for protection purposes and stuff. But there'll be a wall there that kind of separates the lobby area from the staff, each department.

Alice Lema: That's probably a good idea, huh? Yeah. With the way the world is these days. Exactly. Yeah.

Kimberly London: And we're good. But we're gonna be closed to the public community development services is gonna be closed starting Friday, tomorrow at noon through December 9th. It is business as [00:19:00] usual with public works, planning and building.

You can still email in your requests, call us. Some people are working from home, of course, because they're displaced. But you can still come in by appointment only, but I just want people to know it's gonna be blocked. It's gonna be closed because there's construction going on. We can't of course have people, right? Yeah. Walking through that. But if you absolutely are not a computer person, email us, call us and make an appointment and we can still absolutely accommodate you.

Alice Lema: Yeah. You guys are amazing with whatever technology level or not. Mm-hmm. the public has you help them with the smile and great information. Well let's let's talk about what some of the code changes have happened. Cuz there's some big ones, I'm not even sure which one to start with.

Chad Wiltrout: Well, so this year our, it's the commercial codes that are changing. So I kind of already mentioned the structural specialty code, the Oregon structural specialty. So, so [00:20:00] basically what happens is we take the National Code, international Code Council, they, they adopt, or they create what's called the model code.

And then Oregon takes it and they have several months to kind of go through this code change process where they take and they amend that model code, which is a code that's used throughout, not just in the US but throughout the, you know, throughout the world. Really international is international.

And so Oregon will amend it to make it their. And so they usually follow behind. So, so like for example, the International, the 2021 International Building Code is the model code for for our 2022 Oregon Structural Specialty Code. So we amend it. We give it a different name, and then it basically fits our, our criteria here, here in Oregon.

So Oregon is fairly they're kind of on cutting edge when it comes to energy and stuff compared to other regions in the, in this nation. And so, so whether you like it or not. So one of the big changes too is that in the last code cycle we had a new [00:21:00] code. It was the International existing building code, and that was a code that basically addressed all existing buildings. So if you wanted to come in and change the use of your building, or if you wanted to do an alteration or an addition to an existing building, you would use that international existing building code.

What they've done this last code cycle is they've removed that code so we no longer have that, and they've taken all the provisions that were in that code and they put it back into that, that structural code. So chapter 34 will have all of those provisions from reading through that information. One of the biggest things that we're gonna see, and it's one of the questions that get asked, that gets asked a lot on existing buildings, is, am I gonna have to do a seismic retrofit on this building?

And so the biggest change that I, that I've seen so far in the existing building code language, is that, It used to be that you had to, you had to step into a different risk category. So you have, so for example, you have, you have four different risk categories. You have 1, 2, 3, and [00:22:00] four. And so like for example, 90, I'd say probably 90, 95% of the buildings, commercial buildings that we see here in southern Oregon are, are a risk category two building.

To get to a three, you'd have to have like a, a public as assembly or actually just an assembly, just like a church or a restaurant or a movie theater. Something had an occupant load over 300 that would bump you from a risk category two to a three. That's just an example. And then you get into hospitals and you get into our essential facilities, like the police stations, the water treatment facility, those are your risk category four, the idea is that if you have a, a seismic event, those things are up and running to kind of keep people going through, you know, these emergency facilities and stuff. And so, or your high hazard, you know, explosives, those kind of things.

So, so the, so it used to always up until this code cycle, and it's, and it's still a provision in this code cycle that if you bump from one risk category to another, so, for example, the Rogue Valley Mall would [00:23:00] probably have an occupant load over 5,000 people. That would be a risk category three. Okay. If you had a strip mall that had less than 5,000, you'd have a risk category two.

So what the, what the code said is that if you bump yourself from, by changing the use of your building, you go from a risk category two into a risk category three or a three into a four, that that would require a seismic retrofit of the building. You'd have a structural engineer that would do an analysis of the building and they would look at it and say, okay, you need to bring this up to current code for seismic requirements and stuff.

So, so that provision is still in the code, but what they've added to it for this one, is that occupancies, so you have s stands for storage, s occupancies and U occupancies utility, those two uses, if you change occupancies, so let's say you go from an S to an M, which is mercantile. Or you go from an, like an S to an office. So let's say you want to convert an office, a warehouse into an office or a warehouse into a, a shopping center or [00:24:00] something that would, that would bump you into seismic retrofit. So that's new language in the code. So they're, every code cycle, they're making it a little bit tight. You know, they're kind of tightening up that requirement.

Alice Lema: Well, I wonder if we should get in front of it then some of the building owners maybe. Maybe they should do it sooner than later.

Chad Wiltrout: Well, one of the things that, that Medford provides, the City of Medford provides is some, some financial support for businesses that want to either retrofit their building seismically, or with the fire suppression system. So we have, we do have some incentives there for people that are looking, you know, for landowners that are looking to update their buildings or change the use where it would trigger that. There is, I think up to 50% of the cost for some of these systems.

Alice Lema: And so yeah it sounds like an expensive retrofit.

Chad Wiltrout: It could be, yeah.

Alice Lema: Support. So, and are, so does it have to be a multi-story building [00:25:00] to be even a single story building might get, yeah. Okay.

Chad Wiltrout: And they're, and this, there's some other little provisions, like if you replace your, your roof on an existing building and you have unreinforced masonry parfits, some of that kind of, could trigger a partial seismic retrofit. So there are some little, you know, you know, things in the code that could trigger seismic retrofit.

Alice Lema: So how does a commercial building owner find out what their opportunities are if they wanna do seismic retrofitting early? Like, do you guys come out and talk to them or do they have to hire some kind of special building planner?

Chad Wiltrout: Well, yeah. We can always consult with, with a building owner, but we would probably point them towards Harry Weiss.

Kimberly London: Medford Regional Agency. Yeah. That's where the funding or would come from to help support paying for that. They would need a design professional, of course, because maybe the retrofit, once they look at the structure, isn't [00:26:00] gonna be that evasive.

I mean, it's, we're not necessarily saying it's gonna be a lot of money. It just, I mean, a lot of our older buildings, they've been, they're still standing and they're in better shape than things that are 10 years old, . I mean, that does count for something depending on the type of construction and stuff like that. So it, it does need a design professional. So there is some funding up front to make a determination of if and how to proceed.

Alice Lema: What's the timeline on those? Seismic retrofit for at least southern Oregon. Cause sometimes we get a little longer time to adopt things.

Chad Wiltrout: Well, you mean when do those provisions come in? Go into effect, the, so we have. So October 1st, those codes went into effect, but they're, but the state is giving a six month grace period. So, so you have an option to use the existing structural codes or commercial codes for the current [00:27:00] codes until the end of of March. Okay. 2020 for part of April, we're gonna be in the 2022 structural, mm-hmm or the 2022 commercial specialty.

Alice Lema: Okay, we're gonna have to take another quick break. Sorry. Hold that thought. We're talking to Chad Wiltrout and Kimberly London, the city of Medford Building and Safety. Gosh, we've got so much more to go over things that have happened in 2022, and we're gonna talk about what's coming in 2023. So please stay tuned and we'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors. Don't go.

Well, welcome back to The Real Estate Show everybody. We have such a great interview happening right now with our very own city of Medford Building and Safety. Kimberly London and Chad Wiltrout, thanks for being on the show again, guys.

Chad Wiltrout: Yeah. Thanks for having us.

Alice Lema: So so much to talk about. Right before the break we were going over some of the code changes. We were talking about seismic retrofitting and, and that [00:28:00] process. What about some of the other areas of code changes that came up recently?

Chad Wiltrout: Well, one second, I'm gonna turn.

Kimberly London: So the ev charging stations, Chad's gonna talk a little bit about the. Ev charging stations, what's going on with them? Non-energy provisions.

Chad Wiltrout: All right. I'm sorry about that. I had to turn off my go, but I had my phones turned off so anyways. Yeah, so one of the big changes right now are the, the because there's a, there's an executive order from the governor to basically to limit global warming by two degrees Celsius, and that's by reducing greenhouse gas emissions to at least 80% below the 1990 levels. And the mandate is to have that done by 2050. So that's gonna affect 16 different state agencies some of those being deq, department of Energy, public Utility Commission, Oregon Health [00:29:00] Authority, ODOT, BCD

So it, so this, this is a, a very big deal to, to this, to the state. And so one of the changes that we're seeing is with electrical vehicle charging system. Basically at this point it's just infrastructure. So as of July 1st of this year, there was a mandate that went out as House bill 2180, and basically it passed, you know, the legislative level to provide provisions for future electric vehicle charging stations.

And so, so basically at this point, you don't have to put in the charging system, but you have to put in, you know, the conduit in the ground. You have to have designation an area in the building or provide a, a service panel or something to, to accommodate these charging systems, these charging systems for commercial buildings it's a level two, so there's different levels of charging stations, and it has to do with the size of the system and how fast it can charge a vehicle. Okay. [00:30:00] And so there's level one, two, and three. Level one is what you're gonna see in your single family dwellings. Level two and three or what you're gonna see typically in your commercial buildings. Some of 'em are fast charging to where you could charge a car in as little as a half an hour.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's good.

Chad Wiltrout: Four 80 volt, you know, 40 amps. It's gonna be big systems. Exactly. And many Exactly. Very, very spendy systems or they can be .So fortunately at this time, all that's required is that when you're, so basically for new buildings, so any new construction from July forward, if you have a commercial building that's under private ownership, if you have multifamily that where you have five or more residential dwellings and that excludes townhouses, cuz townhouses are considered a single family.

They're attached single family dwellings, they're separated by a two hour wall. Typical. And that, and that allows 'em to build 'em out of the residential code a lot of times, because they have property lines between them, so it's a separate property for each unit, so the townhouses are [00:31:00] excluded. But when we say multifamily, we're talking apartment buildings basically.

So all commercial buildings under private ownership, Multifamily apartments that where you have five or more and then mixed use buildings where, you know, you see some of these where you have like a, maybe you have your first story is commercial buildings and then you have residential on the second and third story that, that kind of scenario where you have mixed use buildings and you have more than five multifamily in those commercial and those mixed use buildings. All of those are captured under this requirement. And so basically what they're saying is that, you know, when you build a new building and you have a parking lot or a parking garage, that, that at least 20% or it says actually the, the language is more than 20% is required. More than 20% of those parking spaces are required to be basically accommodate future charging systems.

And so in each one of those charging systems for each one of those spaces would typically be a 40 [00:32:00] amp, 2 0 8, 2 40 volt system for each one of those. And so at this point, you have to have, you know, it's the conduit in the ground, you know, labeling each end of the conduit. So that is for future use, you know, for that purpose, for that charging station.

Alice Lema: Wow. Should people who are remodeling their multifamily buildings start doing that now as.

Chad Wiltrout: Only if they want to. It's optional for that.

Alice Lema: But I'm just thinking ahead. Cause nothing gets less expensive.

Chad Wiltrout: Yeah, exactly. That's true. Yeah, that's true. So, and then here's, here's the, the next part of this that, that bill basically provides, there's a provision in that that allows local jurisdictions to, to require more than that 20%. So our planning department at this point, they are working on getting change, adopting some provision in the municipal code that allows up to 40%, or that would require up to 40% for multifamily.

Alice Lema: Wow.

Chad Wiltrout: So [00:33:00] yeah, it could be fairly spendy. And so that is an impact on developers. Really?

Alice Lema: Yeah. Might make garages more fashionable too. ? Yes. That's all that if you don't have a garage, then all that stuff is outside, which it's weatherproof, but, yep. Yeah.

Chad Wiltrout: Yeah. So, so it could be parking structure or it can be, you know, outdoor parking spaces. But either way, that, that will be for now everything. Any new building is 20%. But like I said, planning is working on bumping that up to 40% for some uses such as multifamily.

Alice Lema: That's interesting. Well, in the few minutes we've got left, wanna jump back to Kimberly real quick and talk about how important it is to get permits. To call and find out if you need permits. Yeah. And to try to not buy something if it doesn't have permits.

Kimberly London: Yeah. It's, it's ongoing. We have buyers and sellers and they purchased a home and it has additions without [00:34:00] permits. It has garage conversions without permits. Something as simple as two kitchens and you, you know, it's had two kitchens for a long time and now you're renting it out.

And it's never been legal with two kitchens. I, there's probably five right now in the city of Medford. They're not code cases, but we're working them because they're properties listed for sale or they're pending sales. Another big one is a lot of new construction within the past 10 years the contractors really are not finishing the basement level or the crawl space level. I mean, it's all, it's there, it's ready to go. And I've noticed on a lot of new of the construction that it's now included in the square footage, but it, they never obtain the permits to legally recognize that square footage.

Alice Lema: Oh, well that's an oversight.

Kimberly London: You always wanna check the permits and see what we show for habitable square footage. And honestly, I can't help you. [00:35:00] I, I can't help you figure out if something's legal or not legal if you don't tell me what you're trying to find. Yeah, you don't tell me the garage is converted and I supply you with the permit history and there's no garage conversion permit. That doesn't mean there isn't more in depth research that I could do to try to help you figure that.

Alice Lema: Yeah. Well, and you guys are so great about that. If you ever are looking to purchase a property or you're in escrow or you just purchased Yeah. The city of Medford Building and Safety, super knowledgeable, super kind and super technical. You guys are great at helping people get it fixed. , right.

Kimberly London: And they can just go on up the website, www.medford.oregon.gov. Fill out, it says Government fill out a public records request and we could get you the permit history from 1961 to current.

Alice Lema: That's amazing. Just, well, we're outta time again, guys. Thank you Chad Wiltrout, Kimberly London, city [00:36:00] of Medford Building and Safety. Great website. Great people. Call 'em, email 'em, whatever you need, they'll take care of you. Have a beautiful weekend folks. Bye now.

Kimberly London: Bye-bye.

Chad Wiltrout: We'll see you.

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