Permitting Services Podcast

Meet John Catlett: New DPS Commercial Building Division Chief

• Gail Lucas • Season 2 • Episode 13

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Join us for the latest episode of the Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services (DPS) Podcast, where we introduce John Catlett, the new DPS commercial building division chief. Hosted by Gail Lucas, DPS customer support and outreach division chief, this episode dives into Division Chief Catlett’s vision for excellent customer service, what’s new with commercial building codes and the future of the industry. 

Tune in to learn about: 

  • The latest on the codes and code cycle. 
  • The commercial building plan review process.
  • Industry trends and upcoming improvements. 

This is the 28th episode of the DPS podcast. Previous episodes have covered topics like accessory dwelling units, building safety, eSolar, residential fast track permits, special event permits, use and occupancy certificates, vendor licenses, and more.

Have a question or idea for a future episode? Email us at dps.podcast@montgomerycountymd.gov.

Gail Lucas:

Welcome to the Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services podcast. I'm Gail Lucas, your host. I'm also the Division Chief for the Customer Support and Outreach Division here at DPS. Joining us on the podcast today is one of the newest members of the DPS team, john Catlett. Welcome, john. John is the Division Chief for Commercial Building and you started what two months ago. Three months ago.

John Catlett:

It's actually been four months ago. Four months Time flies when you're having fun.

Gail Lucas:

It does. Thank you for joining us today on the podcast. We're going to introduce you to our viewers and our listeners and talk a little bit about what you do and where you see the division of commercial building going All right. Before we dive into all of that, though, let's get a little bit of background about you. What my listeners should know is that John is a consummate storyteller. He has a thousand stories. So John tell us a little bit about your background and what brought you to Montgomery County.

John Catlett:

Well, I appreciate that. Actually, my background is where my stories come from. I started off in 1978 as a volunteer firefighter at the age of 16 and have been in public service ever since. I spent some time as a career firefighter, paramedic. I had great opportunities to be mentored by some really great people Between a combination of working that in a part-time mode and ultimately becoming a building official. I was the youngest one in Virginia, by the way, at the age of 29. Virginia, by the way, at the age of 29. Anyway, at that point I had a career that spanned Winchester, williamsburg, and then I retired as the director of code administration in Alexandria, virginia, for a long time In that role we were a department within a department.

John Catlett:

We were a department within a department. We were part of the fire department as well as part of the city manager's team, and so I had two bosses for a while. But during that time I helped lead the charge to get us into an enterprise fund. Number one and number two was we actually separated into a separate department, so our focus could be on things like permitting and processing and above.

Gail Lucas:

Providing excellent customer service is what we are striving to achieve here at DPS, and it sounds like you have some experience there. Tell us your customer service philosophy.

John Catlett:

Tell us about that. Well, my customer service philosophy came through spending lots of time trying to figure out how to be a better leader and less of a manager, and part of the philosophy with that is, I just hope the catchphrase and I've kept it ever since is let's rule out yes before we say no. And it takes a while it really does. In an environment and a jurisdiction as large as this, it's very difficult to try to figure out how you can facilitate customers when there's so much activity that comes through. But part of the answer to me is you develop leadership at all levels in the organization. You allow people to be empowered to make some decisions that help facilitate people along, and that takes time. If it's something that's not been there in the past or if it's been a situation where that's not been the philosophy, you have to basically educate people and bring them up to that. So that's number one is rule out yes before no.

John Catlett:

There are times we have to say no, but look at all your resources. Spend some time looking at things outside of the code. There's lots of articles, documents, teaching guides, whatever you want to grab a hold of, look and see what other opinions are. And I guess my last piece on that would be I am a believer that a lot of times you have to look outside your own boundaries and what I mean by that is both personally and as a department but then look to see what others have done. I have gotten some credit, which it really was teams in the past that I'd worked with on changing some processes and getting things to move more freer and a much more customer-centric philosophy, more freer and a much more customer-centric philosophy. But it's not because I was some great mind. It's because I knew people and I knew where to ask and I was reading things and looking. So that's what we've got to do.

Gail Lucas:

We've got to look outside our boundaries and see where we should benchmark with the remaining of the communities in the area, and when you say looking outside our boundaries, you mean looking at other jurisdictions, looking at other permitting offices. Is that what you're talking about?

John Catlett:

Yes, and in fact in Alexandria we spent a great deal of time actually making visits. When we decided to do a permit center, we visited several, not even in, we went out of state even just because we wanted the best model. And that best model wasn't going to come from just our minds and thinking about how we've always done it. We've got to look and see how other people have done it and why they're successful.

Gail Lucas:

Sure Building safety, sustainability, accessibility that's one of the top priorities, or several of the top priorities, here at DPS. Tell us about your team and their role when it comes to ensuring that commercial buildings are safe and sustainable.

John Catlett:

Well, of course, the county has had several initiatives and as part of that, we have adopted I won't call it more stringent, but a little bit deeper dive code, which is the ASTM 90.1 as our energy standard, and so this one goes a little bit farther than what people are used to with the ICC energy code, than what people are used to with the ICC energy code.

John Catlett:

They're both very similar but at the same time, the ICC code is always like a cycle behind of where 90.1 is. So we're kind of on the forefront and the cutting edge when it comes to meeting those requirements. I think our team, the biggest thing for us is training, constantly being able to be trained in what the new provisions are, being able to be able to say why they're there. You know, it's one thing to be able to say, yeah, we have a new code and here's the requirements, but how did it get there? Why are we doing it? And so I think that's a big piece in its education of our customers and our client base. So I think for us, our role with inspectors in the field, coordination with other divisions within DPS, sometimes even having to coordinate outside when it comes to restaurants and some other areas I think that for the most part I've seen that coordination works pretty well. The inspection process works wonderfully.

Gail Lucas:

Good. So what changes do you think are coming down in the code? As you know, dps just went through a big code cycle. We updated our codes and it's a short cycle. Our director has talked about it being a short cycle because we're going to be looking at the upcoming codes again very shortly. What changes should people be anticipating coming forward? What?

John Catlett:

changes should people be anticipating coming forward? Well, in our recent code adoption in the 2021, there were some enhancements on mass timber. For those who don't know what I'm speaking of, mass timber is not standard two by fours and two by tens. It is mass elements that now can be put into buildings up to 20 stories tall, and that's by code, and that, when it comes to a greener environment, carbon reduction and so forth, mass temper is something to really consider.

John Catlett:

The other thing I would say that it's coming down the pipeline is, I think there's going to be especially coming up in the 24 codes. There are going to be some simplifications on the national level on several areas, things like calculating height and area, those kinds of things. I think that we're going to see that the code has now finally kind of reached its max when it comes to what it can ask for OK, with a few exceptions. But then at the same time now I think a lot of people are looking at well, how do we make it easier to use, and so I'm hoping that that's what we're going to start seeing in the next few code cycles.

Gail Lucas:

Absolutely. Multifamily housing and four story townhouses fall under the commercial code, even though most of us think of them, and the people that live in them think of them, as residential units or residential dwelling units. What should homeowners know about this difference? We treat them as commercial. They think of them as residential. What should folks know about that? Why is that important for them to understand?

John Catlett:

There's. There's several basic thoughts in the codes themselves. Number one most single family homes or one or two family dwellings and even townhouses under three stories are allowed to be built under a residential code, an international residential code. The issue is is once you get above three stories, like in townhomes, or if you start building outside of what the international residential code is designed for, it actually is almost like a construction document. If you were to take it, not know much about construction, you almost can pull the requirements out of there and say well, I know how many nails I got to put here, how far I can take this two by two by 10.

John Catlett:

Right, the commercial codes are different and that's because once we start getting about three stories, we start getting into different loading requirements on a building structural requirements. There's far different fire protection requirements. There's far different fire protection requirements. You know, for example, in a single family home you can use a 13D sprinkler system and a four-story townhouse has to be a 13R. And the biggest difference is it has a little bit more of a calculation element and a little bit more of a water supply issue because the buildings are bigger, right, so that's why we see that break and in our. I'm terrible, I always refer to things by their code delineation. But in R2, which is like an apartment building, you have rated corridors, you have areas that you have to have fire sprinklers that are to the commercial codes, and so, therefore, that's why I think that there is that subtle difference, especially in the townhomes. But, all in all, it's because there is some pretty substantial difference in how these buildings get put together.

Gail Lucas:

And that's important for folks to know. We get that question often. Another question that we frequently get is just how do I get through this process as quickly as possible? How do I get my plans approved? You know we talk a lot about submitting for permits and when you need a permit and when you don't need a permit, but once that permit hits the door, how do I get through it and get to my project as quickly as possible?

John Catlett:

Well, even before you submit your permit, especially on commercial projects, there is a and I'm drawing a blank on the name of it, but we have a process where-.

Gail Lucas:

Pre-design consultation. That's it.

John Catlett:

And that basically gets you access to all the departments and all the players necessary that can give you information of what you need to make sure it comes in with your permit. It is a complicated process when you get to the commercial side because there are a lot more things that you have to consider Structural design changes, and sometimes that requires calculations and so forth that you may not need in residential. So I would always say that when in doubt and you have a question, call one of us up in the commercial division, including myself, and you're always. You know what, what things do I want to make sure I don't get caught on or get caught up in and we'll try to give you that answer as best we can. I think for most people that need to understand is I've used the term. We are not Mayberry, and Mayberry is you know the one traffic signal town that gets 10 permits a month. We get Gail you could probably say better than me, but we get.

Announcer:

You know the one traffic signal town that gets 10 permits a month, we get Gail.

John Catlett:

You could probably say better than me, but we get, you know, tens and tens, yeah, permits a day, and you know, the problem that people have to understand is, every time someone thinks that they're long in the process, we have some clocks and windows that we have established for timeframes, which are expectations. When those things fall outside those expectations which is the 22 working days once the plan reviewers get it and those types of things I would expect a call. I would want somebody to say hey, what happened? Maybe something didn't get right in the system and the system could be that you know, we either have missed something or, for some reason or another, due to time off or sicknesses or things like that, we've been short-staffed and we don't have a great way of being able to communicate that right now. I'm hoping that at some point we'll have more of like a daily monitor of where things are. Okay, it can be on the website.

Gail Lucas:

How often do you go out in the field, john? How often? I know that you are engaging with customers daily. Since you started you hit the ground running. Customers, I know, are reaching out to you even this early in your tenure. But how often are you out in the field? How often are you looking at what staff is looking at, what your inspectors are looking at, what the plan reviewers have reviewed?

John Catlett:

My philosophy is you can't do it all from behind a desk and there are times where you need to be out in the field. That's a little different philosophy than I believe that might have been in this position previously and I'm not saying that's wrong or right philosophy than I believe that might have been in this position previously. And I'm not saying that's wrong or right. I'm just saying my philosophy is I can only imagine so much of what your problem is until I actually go see it. And then, basically, we try to pull in our team members whenever possible and if we've made a mistake or we think there's something that we could help move you through, whatever that step is, we're going to use it as a learning moment. And you know there is no human process that is a perfect process and we are going to have differences of opinion. We're going to have differences of opinions between inspectors, training and carrying down a philosophy of customer first whenever possible. Hopefully that will start getting better, but I do believe again we're not Mayberry.

John Catlett:

And so it does, you know, to keep things rolling for everyone. We've got to keep things, you know, kind of as structured as possible so that we don't get folks hung up trying to figure out solutions Maybe they're not comfortable figuring out. So that's my role, and my role is to help try to figure those things out.

Gail Lucas:

You talked a little bit about performance expectations, timing of when plans get to plan reviewers. We know, and our listeners our regular listeners and viewers know that we have dashboards that are on our website that help us understand, help the customer understand, how long something is taking. How do you think that should be used? How do you think our dashboard should be used? I'm the customer. Tell me the best way to use our dashboard to help me get through the process.

John Catlett:

Well, of course, if you have something in process and you check the dashboard, you know a couple, three times a week, while you're in that 30-day time frame that we try to shoot for on our mid-size and large projects, you can kind of see if we're getting a little delayed or not.

John Catlett:

The dashboard kind of will give you an idea of what percentages we're hitting.

John Catlett:

We are hoping at some point to also have another dashboard area that tells you how many permits have been received and how many are still in the queue, because I think if the constructing public and our customers get an understanding that we're not just dealing with those five to ten permit applications, they may have a little better understanding of why it takes a little longer. But at the same time, one of the things we are going to try to work to reduce is the number of times we return drawings, the number of times that you know you get rejected. We're going to put in place that after you know something comes in twice, the plan reviewer needs to set up a meeting with the design team and make sure they understand the comments and concerns. They understand the comments and concerns. So I think some of those things will help us put things back online and we don't get to these points where we have these back and forths that are basically nothing more than just the plan submitted, going back with some written comments.

Gail Lucas:

What else can customers do to make sure that they're getting the information that they need, that they're supplying to DPS the information that DPS needs? What else can they do?

John Catlett:

Well, on our website we do have some pretty good per process type things that you need to make sure you submit per process type things that you need to make sure you submit. But the other thing I would highly recommend if you have a complicated project or a large project and you know there's going to probably be some differing of opinion of how you've applied the code call myself or call one of the managers.

John Catlett:

You know we have Crystal. She's over top of the fire protection plan review section and also the life safety and architectural. Alex is over the engineering side and our field inspectors our special or critical structures program, which is the things where are elements that typically you don't find in a local building department they can inspect. Those are the things where you're required to have an external source, those types of things. Do that planning early on. Make sure that you're having a conversation with our team. Request a team meeting with us.

John Catlett:

You know if it's a big project. We don't have that on the website yet, but that's coming and you know if it's a big project. We don't have that on the website yet, but that's coming and you know those types of things. Anything we can do to talk through it up front I think will help make the process go better as you go through.

Gail Lucas:

Communicate, communicate, communicate. We are here to make sure that you understand what you need to do.

Announcer:

So what else?

Gail Lucas:

What else have I not asked you about? Or what else do you want to share with our listeners about getting through the commercial process, or just about this commercial division that you're now in charge of? Is there anything else you want to talk about with that?

John Catlett:

I would just say that I have been blessed to come here, especially in my late stage and after every time I said I was going to retire I didn't, but we have some of the best professionals, I think, in the industry, and I mean that we have some of the most highly recommended engineers. In our structural side, we have a staff of people that are very technically qualified, and what we want to do now is marry that with the customer service piece as well and trying to, through education, more training and those types of things, for us to learn where we have a little more flexibility. And that's a difficult thing to do, especially when you're getting 10 or 15 requests a day for you know well how can you give on this or how can you do it?

John Catlett:

Well, the code's the code, but there are sometimes 10 ways to build a mousetrap.

John Catlett:

So, you know, using experience and things like that is what we want to try to bring into a more human process, I guess would be the right answer.

John Catlett:

The other thing is we are looking at various programs. It's in the very early stages, but one of the things I'm hoping that we will ultimately fund and take care of is going to be a pre-application review process where, when you're in a long-term planning process trying to get a project approved that at like 90% or something like that, your plans could come in. It would be a fee. It would definitely have to be something where you understand that once that's approved, we have to go back and make sure the plans are the same and all. So it wouldn't remove an after-permit application process, but hopefully it would expedite it along really quickly, and I have had experience with that in other jurisdictions and, be truthful with you, it was very successful. It helped a lot. Yeah, and I think the only other thing I would just add just before going is is be patient with us, just like with any place. We're going through growing pains too, and if you got a concern.

Gail Lucas:

feel free to jump out there and hit me up my number's on the webpage.

John Catlett:

As is all of DPS staff.

Gail Lucas:

So we are available to folks, if you have questions or if you need help. Absolutely Thank you, john, for joining us on the podcast today and to our listeners, to our viewers, remember DPS is here to help you, our customers, succeed. It's important to know when to get a permit. It's important to know when you don't need a permit. It's also important to know who you can reach out to to get help if you get stuck or if you just want to make sure that you're doing everything that you need to do correctly. If you have any questions about the permitting process, you can reach out to our customer service team at MC311, just dial 311 or 240-777-0311, or stop by our offices. Dps is open with folks in the office to help you. We're at 2425 Reedy Drive on the seventh floor. We're open Monday through Friday from 730 am to four o'clock pm and you don't ever need an appointment and we have folks in the office that can walk you through the process, can answer your questions and make sure that you get on the right track. Again, john, thank you for joining us on the podcast today and thank you, listeners, for tuning in.

Gail Lucas:

Please check out the Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services website, montgomerycountymdgov forward slash DPS to find information and resources to help you with your next project. Do you have an idea or a suggestion for our podcast? Please let us know. We're interested in making sure that this podcast is relevant to you and speaks to the issues that you want to hear about. Email your ideas and questions to dpspodcast at montgomerycountymdgov. And, if you found this podcast helpful, please subscribe and tell your friends and your family to subscribe so that you're always up on our latest episode. I'm Gail Lucas, remember. Dps is your project partner.

Announcer:

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