City of Dallas politics in action

[cda]

http://www.dallasobserver.com/2010-09-09/news/think-city-hall-should-get-a-tax-hike-you-might-think-again-after-seeing-how-crappy-it-treats-its-taxpayers/

Think City Hall Should Get A Tax Hike? You Might Think Again After Seeing How Crappy It Treats Its Taxpayers.

A A AComments (47) By Jim Schutze Thursday, Sep 9 2010

 

[Mark K]

My experience is that plan checkers and inspectors can play similar games. Some invent requirements that are not in the code. Architects and engineers then often go along rather than fight because they can't deal with the delays or they do not want to be retaliated against.

While the government can have imunity against economic losses the owner can go to court and have the city issue the permits and cirtificate of occupancy once he has complied with the permit requirements.

Reference "Legal Aspects of Code Administration" published by ICC. Once a permit has been issued and a substantial amount of work has been done the permit cannot be revoked even if the permit was issued in error. One excemption would be if there was a significant publich safety issue that was not curable.

There are two legal theories that support this. The first is the theory of equitable estoppel which says that the municipality may be precluded by its actions. The second and newer theory is that they can revoke the permit but at the expense of the building code official in his personal capacity.

 

[peach]

sometimes, it just sucks to be a property owner.

Having said that, the owner has plenty of appeals.. it's called court.. depending on the judge, of course. A jurisdiction can only flip flop so many times before a court will put the brakes on them. NOTE: a municipal judge is going to rule in favor of the municipality probably close to 100% of the time... take the evidence, and that ruling to an appeals court.

If the jurisdiction isn't going to acknowledge what they are doing is wrong, let a circuit court tell them.