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When Existing Buildings Get Renovated, How Much Weight Should We Give the RDP’s Declared Construction Type?

I have been in my home town for 22 years as the BO, and served over 40 years on the Fire Department before retiring for that 3 years ago. I have tried to record the knowledge for the next person
 
steveray said:
Longevity and/ or good recordkeeping are great.. If you have neither, it can get real ugly....I might try to go to the site and look as a last resort, but if trusting the designer is the only way to start, then go there and when it blows up in the field, blame the designer...
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Records are essential -- and all too often there are none. Wearing my architect hat, I was once asked to look at doing an addition to a factory building that had a rather large office and showroom wing that ran the full width of the factory portion and was maybe 50 feet deep. The office/showroom was not "insubstantial." When I attempted to research the record to determine the declared construction type and whether the mixed uses were separated or non-separated, I found that the town had no copies of the plans. The certificate of occupancy read "Factory."

Not helpful.

Still wearing my architect hat: The code requires that construction documents show that the proposed work will comply with the codes and all applicable laws and regulations. Since code compliance can't be discussed without knowing the construction type, it is the design professional's duty and responsibility to do whatever they have to in order to determine what the construction type is. If that involves bringing in a contractor to make holes in some walls to see what's under the finishes -- so be it.

The town I work in now has pretty complete records of plans going back fifty years or so. We have a room full of flat file (map) cabinets, with the plans indexed by permit number. The problem is, the town dates to about 1700, so that leaves 275 years (or so) of buildings for which we don't have records. There are some people (both property owners and town administrators) who think I'm a pain in the [bleep] for insisting that plans include a properly completed code data sheet or block, but I think it's important for whoever may work in/on a building the next time to have correct information available.
 
I would add that anytime someone wants to reclassify a space (such as from II-B to III-B to allow wood walls) we require that the owner of the building (not the architect or tenant) write a letter consenting to the reclassification.
 
jc_ks said:
I would add that anytime someone wants to reclassify a space (such as from II-B to III-B to allow wood walls) we require that the owner of the building (not the architect or tenant) write a letter consenting to the reclassification.
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Absolutely. It is the property owner who is responsible/liable for any and all consequences of reclassification. It's only right that we as code officials ensure that the owner knows what his/her/their agents are doing with their building.
 
jc_ks said:
I would add that anytime someone wants to reclassify a space (such as from II-B to III-B to allow wood walls) we require that the owner of the building (not the architect or tenant) write a letter consenting to the reclassification.
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If Owner's consent is mandatory to allow a reclassification of an existing building, then do you also make Owner consent necessary for the initial building classification of brand new buildings?
 
Yikes said:
If Owner's consent is mandatory to allow a reclassification of an existing building, then do you also make Owner consent necessary for the initial building classification of brand new buildings?
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I view it as assumed. If anyone other than an owner him/her/itself applies, the applicant is doing so as an agent of the owner.

I recently posted elsewhere on this forum about a recent project where I questioned the classification. It was a pre-engineered metal building shell application, but the construction type was declared as V-B. I reached out to the owner and asked why it wasn't II-B, and I explained that classifying it as V-B would substantially limit his future options. He told me he planned to finish out one bay as offices, and that his contractor told him it would be much cheaper to frame the offices in wood rather than steel stud. Okay -- we issued the permit for type V-B, then he took out a permit to build the offices in wood, and he got a certificate of occupancy.

The business is a moving and storage company. Fast forward about a year or 18 months, and he was back. He wanted to add another 6,000 s.f of warehouse space. I was the guy who got to explain to him that he had already built 9,000 s.f. and because he classified it as type V-B construction that was as big as he could make it. (No, he didn't qualify for excess open perimeter.) So he had to put his new 6,000 s.f warehouse far enough away from the first building to meet code requirements for fire separations.

We tried to warn him, but he wasn't able to think a year or two ahead.
 
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