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BACKGROUND The Building/Fire permit plan review consultants provide plan review services as described in Exhibit A of the attached contract for consultant services. The consultants review submitted plans and building permit documents for compliance with the provisions of the City's Building, Fire, Electrical, Plumbing, Mechanical and Housing Codes, the City of Pleasanton's Zoning Ordinances, and related Building Division policies, and State and local laws. The consultants make such inspections and investigations as may be required by the City's Ordinances and duly adopted policies to help facilitate the plan review and building permit process. The City of Pleasanton has historically utilized consultants to meet the plan review needs within the community. Consultant plan review services provide flexible staffing levels to handle variations in construction activity and plan review workload. Another advantage of consultant plan review services is access to expertise in a wide variety of construction specialties. Our plan review consultants have specialists to assist on plan review for a broad variety of construction projects ranging from new large custom homes and high-tech commercial offices to remodeling of historic structures. Additionally, consultants are called upon to provide professional field inspection staff on an as needed basis to help the City maintain its normal high level of customer service. For a particular project submittal, consultant firms are selected on availability, expertise, and/or a rotational basis. DISCUSSION WC3 is a new plan review firm, located in Pleasanton, which is made up of plan review and inspection staff previously employed by the City's other approved consulting firms. Although a new firm, the staff have a proven track record of performing quality and timely plan reviews and inspection services for the City of Pleasanton during their prior employment with the other established plan review and inspection firms. WC3, Inc., was not in existence at the time of the original selection of consultants. Based on their submitted proposal, had WC3 been in existence at the original time of selection of Plan Review and Inspection consultants, they would have clearly qualified as one of the City's "approved" consultant firms. Staff recommends adding WC3 to the City's list of approved consultants to create additional flexibility in the use of consultants. The compensation for the consultant will be as described in Exhibit B of the attached contract. The proposed new contract with WC3 continues the same basic percentages of the plan review fees paid to the other consultants at fifty-five percent (55%) and also maintains the standardized hourly billing rates between the consultants. In addition, the new contract with WC3 requires the same quick turn around times for small projects (ten working days versus fifteen working days), provides the City with the same insurance protection, and gives the City of Pleasanton priority for consultant services following a local or regional emergency. Page2of3