Belmont County seeks partnership with the Mid East Ohio Building Dept.

ZANESVILLE, Ohio- Belmont County has partnered with The Mid East Ohio Building Department for future commercial work.

Thursday, the head of The Building Department met with The Muskingum County Commissioners office to seek approval on the Belmont County agreement.

“The agreement is pretty standard. Commercial code is adopted statewide. I needed the commissioners to sign off on an agreement we’re going to have between Belmont County and The Mid East Ohio Building Department. We’re going to be the authority having jurisdiction reviewing non-commercial that is in Belmont County,” said Chief Building Official, Jason Baughman.

The reason Belmont County decided to partner with The Mid East Ohio Building Department is all thanks to the current Executive Director of The Belmont County Port Authority, Larry Merry.

“Larry Merry is the Port Authority in Belmont County and Larry Merry was a county commissioner here for Muskingum County when our building department was started, he was instrumental in starting that. He has a relationship with our building department and history here. Now, as a Port Authority over there he felt it might be beneficial to county residents if something more local was presented to them,” said Baughman.

Once the agreement is signed, it will go before the Board of Building Standards, which is set to take place in April. In this meeting, the board will either approve or disapprove the agreement.