Waterbury Democrat., 1902-02-12
ABOUT BUILDING INSPECTOR.
Many surmises as to Who Win Get
 the Position.

the HOSitlUu.
 Who'll be the new building inspec- or? That's the question nobody ap- pears to be able to answer at the pres mt time, although propably one would lot be far out of the way if he should say that the republican members ol he board of aldermen have already agreed upon a man. The position will .equire a very competent man, and in | ,rder to secure the services of such an )fficial the city will have to pay hand somely, for the right man won't take t at a small salary. He'll want more than $1.50 day. It would be good 1 )lan to have the appointment made Dy | he mayor, subject to the approval of | he board of aldermen, and there are l hose who take the ground that the l test results would be attained by giv- I ing the mayor power to make the ap- l pointment independently of the alder men. In addition to practical knOWl- | edge of the duties of the class of work | he will have to deal with, the inspec- | tor will require lot of horse sense, ] for, as the framers of the draft admit l the ordinance is remedial and is to be l construed liberally to insure the bene- l fcial interests and purposes thereof. l This means, of course, that the com mittee realized that the draft was not perfect and that cases would turn up | from time to time where the inspector 1 would have to exercise his own judg- | ment as to what should be done, and
 this being so it must be plain to all | that the official should be honest, com petent and wholly impartial. The draft was prepared by John w. Gaffney, Cornelius Tracy and Wilfred E.. Griggs, the last named an architect and the other two contractors and builders. At the meeting of the alder
 men Monday night Mir Walker said l that he would introduce some amend
 ments to it later. Instead of being adopted, as it undoub tedly would have 1 been if a motion to that effect had | been put, it was referred to the law
 committee with a request that they
 report on it at the meeting to be held 1 next week.
 | Some of the land owners are making big fuss about section 107 of the or dinance, which reads as follows: ''No
 frame building as defined in this ordi-
 nance shall hereafter be built within the limits of the city of Waterbury | the face of main wall of which shall be nearer than five feet to any divis- ion line of same lot or any existing building other than frame building. or nearer than ten feet to any exist l ing frame building.'
 According to this. if there is q frame building up to the line of a lot. the
 man who builds next to it will have
 to keep back ten feet in his own lot. me ooJect aimed at is to have a space or ten feet between frame buildings.
 U IS a good plan- but some claim that
 Where land in valuable if will work great hardship to owners of property. People who will be hit hard est are those who own iofs beside frame structures that are built cloar ont to the division line. The new hI1ildingS will have to keep back 10 I feet. while those who built on time l have the use of their whole lot. There seems to be no remedy for this. but the onnonents of the section state that it should be amended so as not fo ap-
 ply to a lot adjoining frame building That is on the line. This would fix things so that where there are no houses on lots each owner would have to keep back five feet, making ten feet | between them. but as most people
 build close to the line. and some are so covefous they go beyond it. there
 would be many places where new houses would be not more than five | feet from existing buildings While
 the section as it reads may have some bad features. still it cannot he denied
 that. on the whole it is an improve
 ment on the scheme of building as you 1 please, and while it may strike some peonle hard. if it be for the public
 good it should be welcomed. Who
 knows but some ingenious fellow will
 bring out some fire proof material
 which will enable people to build
 cheaper of that kind of stock than they
 can of wood?