Planning 2012: City Considers Sharing Building Services With Beverly Hills

The Birmingham City Commission held its , during which commissioners heard reports from various city departments on what happened in 2011 and what's in store for Birmingham in 2012.

Birmingham Patch was there all day, but just in case you missed it, here are some of the highlights about the upcoming year in city government.

City could conduct building inspections, issue building permits for Beverly Hills

Bruce Johnson, official, presented tentative plans Saturday for providing various building services to the village of Beverly Hills. The village approached Birmingham several months ago to discuss providing several kinds of services for village residents, including issuing building permits and conducting inspections, Johnson said.

He said it is key that this move benefit Birmingham and not lower the level of service for Birmingham residents and businesses.

The Building Department is analyzing the potential for increased revenues as well as the logistics of the plan, including training staff, sharing revenues, questions of liability and overhead costs.

“We’re trying to find every efficiency that we can if we’re going to do this,” Johnson said. “We’re going to analyze the data to see if it makes sense to do this.”

“It seems to me like there’s the potential for a lot of hidden costs here,” Mayor Mark Nickita said. “So that’s why it’s good you’re looking at it from the front end. … But Lansing is giving incentives to communities who (share services), so what could this do for us?”

• For more: For a full report from the long-range planning session, check out . Make sure to tell us what you think city government should focus on in 2012 by taking our poll at the end of the story.