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Permits for city owned buildings

Joe.B

Joe.B

SAWHORSE
Staff member
Joined
Dec 4, 2020
Messages
1,620
Location
Myrtletown Ca
Just wondering how your AHJ handles permits for their own buildings. a couple examples would be re-roofing a city building, HVAC upgrades, Solar PV, or a full remodel/addition. Would you issue the permit to the contractor just like any other, or would it be a zero fee permit? If it required plan review would your own staff do the review or would you send it out to a 3rd party reviewer? City staff performing inspections or 3rd party?

Thanks!
 
All structures and equipment are subject to permitting, for municipal projects the building permit fee is waived, for enterprise accounts and schools they are charged the BP fee as they are independent. Electric, Plumbing and Gas are charged the $75.00 per inspection fee as my trade inspectors are paid by the inspection
 
We are an enterprise fund so therefore we charge for all permits. Some projects are funded by federal or state grants so why should the building department subsidized those projects or other departments by waiving fees. If city employees are doing the work, usually very small like running an additional outlet or changing out a water heater I have set up an annual permit (sec 105.1.1) with a $50.00 dollar fee to track the work and inspections done by 3 departments that do the work
 
mtlogcabin said:
We are an enterprise fund so therefore we charge for all permits. Some projects are funded by federal or state grants so why should the building department subsidized those projects or other departments by waiving fees. If city employees are doing the work, usually very small like running an additional outlet or changing out a water heater I have set up an annual permit (sec 105.1.1) with a $50.00 dollar fee to track the work and inspections done by 3 departments that do the work
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You have licensed plumbers and electricians as city employees?
 
Thanks for sharing. I don't see an issue either, but it's the things you don't see that can end up biting you. Just thought I'd get some advice from the community. Much appreciated!
 
We process just like every other permit. Including charging fees.

Think of it this way... if we don't charge ourselves for permitting fees, then the cost of that service is just rolled over to all the other permits done that year. Negligible amount we all know. But that said, if you do not charge, then your in the world of taxation and not fees.
 
steveray said:
We do....But oddly enough they are technically exempted from having licenses by State law....
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mtlogcabin said:
Yes we do. Signs and signals (traffic lights) have journeyman electricians and PW has 2 journeyman plumbers. Any work put out for contract we treat just like any other construction project. Full plan review and permit fees.
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Interesting.
 
mtlogcabin said:
We are an enterprise fund so therefore we charge for all permits. Some projects are funded by federal or state grants so why should the building department subsidized those projects or other departments by waiving fees. If city employees are doing the work, usually very small like running an additional outlet or changing out a water heater I have set up an annual permit (sec 105.1.1) with a $50.00 dollar fee to track the work and inspections done by 3 departments that do the work
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We too are an enterprise fund (as we should be) but I don't think we will ever get approval to charge fees for city permits. Anyone else charge for this?
 
Here any project for a Municipality, school or has State or Federal money involved the State has jurisdiction.

I personally wouldn't want to permit our own stuff just because you know how City leaders and politicians are. They would allows be trying to FUDGE something. Or that cost to much just do this. :eek:
 
my250r11 said:
Here any project for a Municipality, school or has State or Federal money involved the State has jurisdiction.

I personally wouldn't want to permit our own stuff just because you know how City leaders and politicians are. They would allows be trying to FUDGE something. Or that cost to much just do this. :eek:
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Like ignore ADA improvements? Before I got this job there was a major interior remodel that was well over the threshold for full compliance. No mention of ADA improvements and the permit was never closed because there are still outstanding issues. Each of my previous bosses have tried to address these and bit by bit the improvements have been made. Just a few small issues that I'm looking at now. The plan review was done in-house and all inspections performed by previous staff. I don't know for sure but it seems like some things were intentionally ignored.
 
Joe.B said:
Like ignore ADA improvements? Before I got this job there was a major interior remodel that was well over the threshold for full compliance. No mention of ADA improvements and the permit was never closed because there are still outstanding issues. Each of my previous bosses have tried to address these and bit by bit the improvements have been made. Just a few small issues that I'm looking at now. The plan review was done in-house and all inspections performed by previous staff. I don't know for sure but it seems like some things were intentionally ignored.
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That is a great example. The BO has had some pretty heavy pressure to approve some things that are in our jurisdiction for political or just the higher ups try to stop the complaining from the people that don't pass inspection. He has held he's ground but I know it was very stressful and frustrating for him.
 
I have a situation where the muni wants the codes department to do the review and hand the inspections off to a third party inspector. Right off the bat the architect has room classifications awry. Codes department was not part of any building planning and was told there was a concern that the city would snake around the codes, so...you can see that theres a lot of angles to take into consideration.

The other taxing entities in the past felt they were exempt from permitting, however when it comes to municipal services we require them to pony up for thier direct impact to the system.

We would issue ourselves a zero cost permit, do the review in house to save $$ and pay for third party inspections for the whole project. Then issue a final inspection and CO.

Does anyone do it this way?
 
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