Jackhammers and bulldozers move dirt and concrete at a demolition site near Cincinnati's downtown Convention Center. Among the heavy machinery and metallic clanging, Buildings and Inspections Supervisor Scott Ryan leads a group of young women and men clad in hard hats and high-vis vests through clouds of dust.
"Always make eye contact with a heavy equipment operator. If you decide to move around them, make sure they see you first," Ryan tells them. "We have to make sure we give them a clear distance."
The group is part of the city of Cincinnati's third Building Inspector Training Academy. They've left a number of other fields — many unrelated to the building trades — to get a year's worth of paid training so they can become inspectors.
Emily Leber is one of the trainees. She graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a degree in marketing, but quickly realized the field wasn't her niche. She says something about the inspector academy resonated with her, so she applied.
"I grew up on a farm and my dad would just draw up something he wanted to make and would build it in our backyard," she laughs. "He'd be making chicken coops, greenhouses... we actually fixed up a house when I was younger. All of that kind of gave me this background, and now I can apply that to my job."
Usually, candidates like Leber wouldn't be qualified under the Ohio Chamber of Commerce's Board of Building Standards certification process, which requires three to five years of construction trades experience. But two years ago, the state began allowing alternative certification for candidates who complete Cincinnati's intensive classroom and field training program.
Those who graduate the code academy still have to pass standardized exams to become entry-level inspectors. They just don't have to spend five years in other parts of the building trades to get that chance.
The city says it's possibly the first in the nation to try this approach to filling vacancies for vital public safety jobs such approving architectural plans, making sure buildings are constructed in a safe and standard manner, and ensuring that existing housing and other structures are kept in habitable condition.
A complex response to dangerous conditions
Peter Yi is a practicing architect and a professor at the University of Cincinnati. He says code enforcement dates back to the crowded tenements and dangerous living conditions once found in dense neighborhoods like Over-the-Rhine.
"In the 19th century, living conditions became so poor in many cities, including Cincinnati, that it sparked widespread reform movements that focused on regulating buildings to improve living conditions," he says.
Over time, those efforts evolved into the modern building code system, Yi says. These days, much of the building code in Cincinnati and other cities isn't written by municipal officials, it's drawn up by professional architects, tradespeople and engineers working with the International Code Council. City officials then adopt those model codes.
The inspector shortage
Highly-trained inspectors are needed to enforce those complicated rules. Finding them has been a struggle in Cincinnati.
Cincinnati Buildings and Inspections Director Art Dahlberg says a few years ago, his department only had about half the inspectors it needed because of retirements and a shortage of construction tradespeople dating back to the Great Recession from 2007 to mid-2009.
That slowed down approval of permits for new construction — not a great thing in a city interested in new development. It also sent the wrong message to owners of existing buildings who weren't maintaining their properties.
"The timeliness of you getting out there stretches out a lot," he says. "As a result, some of the entities that own or maintain property tend to view you as a paper tiger."
Other cities have had similar inspector shortages. Places like Atlanta and Denver have begun incorporating AI into the permit approval phase of code enforcement. Other municipalities like Newport News, Virginia, have gone further, putting cameras on municipal vehicles and training AI to look for code violations on existing buildings.
A community-driven approach
Dahlberg says Cincinnati's program is almost the opposite. It aims to put people who grew up in city neighborhoods out into those communities to enhance trust in the process.
"As a part of this, we're greatly improving the diversity of our workforce so it's matching the community," he says. "To me, that's what is a huge success here."
That community-driven approach resonates with Mario Simpson, another academy student. He was a realtor for nine years and found himself wondering about living conditions and building safety as he showed houses to first-time homebuyers.
"Like, 'hey, I'm questioning if this building is actually safe,' " he says. " 'I know you have two kids with one on the way... this house throws me off.' I could never understand why I'd get that feeling sometimes."
WVXU has reported on some of the substandard housing conditions in and around Cincinnati, and often includes public records from inspectors' visits to properties in its reporting.
Simpson says he's become a "code nerd" since entering the academy. It's about "being an advocate for other people in our city," he says.
"I'm really big on the safety aspect of this, and making a house feel like a home," he says.
Graduates at work
At a half-finished townhouse development on Cincinnati's East Side, a couple of recent code academy graduates are looking over construction progress.
Obadare Ajao and Gino Battistella finished the program last year and are now certified code inspectors for the city.
They chat as they look over gusset plates and other details in the interior of a unit. Both say the academy process was hard and they spent five or six days each week studying for certification tests.
"The code books are extensive, they're thick, they're complicated," Battistella says. "It was intense, but awfully fun."
Battistella was previously a construction project manager, so he knew his way around a building site. Ajao didn't have trades experience, but is knowledgeable about real estate.
Both say their work as inspectors helps them feel like they're serving the community.
"It makes you think about how many people are living in buildings where it's really tough to live," Ajao says. "It's almost an honor to me because I've lived in Cincinnati all my life. I know the areas, and just going around and being able to help people in different pockets, you feel good about that."
Beyond code enforcement
Buildings and Inspections Director Art Dahlberg says candidates like Leber and Simpson, and graduates like Ajao and Battistella, are moving the needle. The city expects to have about 95% of the inspectors it needs when the next class graduates in April, 2027.
But will the increased number of building inspectors be enough to help improve some of the city's poor housing conditions?
Architect and UC professor Yi says code enforcement is important, but increasing inspectors isn't the only effort necessary to ensure safe housing conditions.
"Code enforcement is not necessarily just about compliance," he says. "It's important to mention that code effects complex and changing social and environmental issues."
Code enforcement is connected to a number of other systems — the broader economy, who owns a city's housing, landlord-tenant relations and tenant organizing, the efficacy of the local legal system when code violators end up in court — that complicate the issue.
Yi says organizations like The Port, the Hamilton County Landbank, community development corporations and grassroots groups — think nonprofits like Working in Neighborhoods and People Working Cooperatively — can also do a lot toward supporting the aims of code compliance.
"I think a more holistic view is about how the public can be more empowered to improve their living conditions," he says. "That includes not just government and municipal organizations, but other groups."
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