DeKalb’s Jones hammers shoddy homebuilders

DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones has beefed up new residential building standards with legislation that passed the Board of Commissioners unanimously July 30.

As a DeKalb County representative to the General Assembly during the late ’90s, Jones was one of the few lawmakers who tried to craft some quality-control standards for Georgia’s booming homebuilding industry, which produced more than 371,000 single-family dwellings in one decade.

In metro Atlanta, that explosion of construction also resulted in 863 complaints against new homebuilders since 1998, according to the Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs and the Metro Atlanta Better Business Bureau.

Although DeKalb builders have complained that the new rules will drive up home prices, Jones isn’t finished yet. Within the coming weeks, he plans to propose requiring builders to put up surety bonds that will cover repairs new homebuyers might have to make as result of shoddy workmanship or substandard materials.??