Lawrence city commissioners on Tuesday welcomed a proposal to license building contractors and said the program should be extended to framers and foundation builders as well.

“If that (building’s foundation) fails, I don’t care how good your drywall is,” Commissioner David Schauner said.

Details of the licensing program still are pending. But Bobbie Flory, director of the Lawrence Home Builders Assn., said her organization hoped the city would pattern itself after the model established in Johnson County. The Home Builders Assn. proposed the licensing program.

The Johnson County program, she said, will include requirements that contractors purchase workers’ compensation insurance and take classes every year to stay current with building techniques and codes.

Such licensing, Flory said, will raise public confidence.

“Like all businesspeople, I think the builders are concerned about their quality of work,” she said.

Current Lawrence contractors, of which there are roughly 200, should be allowed to receive licenses without taking a qualification test that will be required of new licensees in the future, Flory said.

“What we don’t want to do is, we don’t want to set up a situation where somebody who has been building successfully in Lawrence for 15 years doesn’t pass a test and has to go out of business,” she said.

Builders group proposes licensing for contractors (1-12-04)

Commissioners directed city staffers to work out details of the licensing program.