Thread: damn town code

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I finally found a building to start out in to get me out of the weather. ordered a carport inclosed on 3 side 18 x 41 x 10. went to my town and filed a zoning permit. the building inspector tells me 8 days later that he remembers signing it but he lost it. and that we have to get a building permit now. applied for the building permit and the town now says that we have to have a certified builing plan. This is for a carport that will be anchored to the ground. the certified building plan cost another 400 dollars and will take 10 more days to receive. I am so mad. This is all bull. we live in a small town of less than 3000 people. What else is next. our town government has lost its mind. Thanks for letting me rant.

already talked to my neighbors about what we planned. will look into the carport that you have mentioned. only thing that the neighbors have said is can i do some work for them.

Bureaucracy in action, ain't it grand?

Try living in my area, especially Cape Coral Florida. You have to get a building permit to erect one of those little metal backyard buildings that they sell at Home Depot!! And then you have to use specific thickness of the concrete base and specific concrete screws to fasten it down. Have to preserve the property values in your neighborhood, you know.

They even dictate what can be parked in your backyard, and you can NEVER put your boat or any trailer in your front yard, not even to wash it when you come home from boating. They would be happy if every house were painted exactly the same color and had the same landscaping.

As for all those permits you are having to get, it is a way for them to make money, that's the biggest part of it.

Don

I am having the same trouble wanted to build a garage city said I had to have a three foot deep footing with an eight inch wall to build on (a bunch of rerod too) so thought I would go with a carport . same thing .portable metal building (have to get engineering report) bought a large canvas garage about six months ago. Waiting for someone to complain.Hope you get your permits Francis

thanks guys for letting me rant. just gets so frustrating dealing with gliches when you have a plan all figured out. hell the crack house up the stree they do not even care about but for the taxpaying citizen who just wants to improve their lot they have got to jump through hoops. they are now on my list that if i could travel father than 3 blocks they would get a good tongue lashing.

Every town ship is differant. Try dealing with ours , you need permit build dog house. Know that's crock. I was willing pay for 200' of fencing put between school hill and our house turned me down. The hill side covered in weeds , trash and it's eye sore. Know the real kicker is if my grass grows over 4'' high they give you $500 fine. No I don't live in housing plan , what one does other has to follow.

Jyardgirl
Try living in a Hysterical(historical) District. It took 6 months to get a permit to take down and rebuild my barn/garage to the same size shape, footprint, to modern day setbacks. We even recycled the hundred year old redwood siding to rebuild it. The city planner initially said you can't do this, the barn may be historical and you'll have to have a historical survey=2500.00 to prove it isn't. Then it will go through a historical review. I cried Bullshit, got the senior planner to review and ok it. He was thrilled we were trying to save the building. She then was in charge of issuing the permit. Well... she said, "I haven't seen your permit, and I only look at permits on Friday, and yours would be on the bottom of my pile, so I don't think it will reach my eyes until 2-3 weeks from now." I blew a gasget! She relented and issued the pemit, with..."I met you in the middle on this one, but when it comes to your house addition, it's going to be by the book."
It came down to me contacting her boss, threatening to sue the City for abuse and unproffessional conduct. About a year later we got the permit for our addition, total city cost's around 14,000.00 dollars.
Like everyone else has said, those temperary structures are the way around the city. Instead of issuing permits for nice garages and or car ports, the city here makes it impossible for the home owner, to the point they all end up with white half dome car ports(quonset huts we called them in Florida)
They city planners are all power hungry fiends here and love to bust the chops of the people who pay their flea picking salaries! Good luck!

Barb, my best advice would be not to believe anything anyone says to you until you read if for yourself in black and white. Go to wherever the codes are stored or archived. Read them for yourself and make copies. I think you may find a way around all the b-s.

Many years ago, I got a traffic ticket for crossing over the (gore)(goar) line, (not sure of the spelling) on the interstate. It's the 6" wide white line that comes out to a spear shape at the on and off ramps. Anyway, I went to the Arizona Department of Motor Vehicles office in Phoenix and bought the books that outline the traffic pavement markings for the State. I found out that if you had reduced your speed from that which is posted and used caution, you could legally cross the line. The posted speed was 55. The Highway Patrolman who wrote the ticket listed my speed at 40 on the ticket. I went to court, representing myself, showed the judge the law in the book I had purchased and argued that I had reduced my speed 27% from the posted limit and had indeed used caution because I had no other tickets for the past 25 years and was a responsible driver. She declared that I was "not responsible" and dismissed the case. I was wishing that I had a camera with me to capture the look on the patrolman's face. He was devastated!! As I was putting my books and papers together to leave, I heard the judge say to the patrolman "Well, what are we going to do now?" It was less than a year later that the law was changed to where you cannot cross the line under any circumstances.

Another case in point. As long as I have lived here, everyone has told me that you can't sell more than 3 cars per year without a dealer's license (high-buck). Following the ticket incident, I got curious about the 3 car law. I went to the Noble Library on the Arizona State University campus and looked up the law in black and white. It states that as an individual, you cannot sell more than 3 cars per year if you are self-financing them. You can sell all the cars you want to if you are selling them for cash.

So you see, people get things turned around from what the law actually says. Determine who has jurisdiction in your case and examine the laws for yourself in black and white.

As an aside, the judge had quite a lot of insight by declaring me "not responsible"

thanks tech i will look them up right now. Glad to know from you guys that mine is not the only horror story in dealing with codes.

In the small town that I grew up in my mother used to raise chickens. As she got older she didn't have chickens any longer so she wanted to tear down the old chicken coop (about 40 years old). Town told her she needed a permit to tear it down. So she waited until the first good windstorm, and she used her lawn tractor and pushed it down. Told neighbors the wind did it.

She told me she didn't need a permit to build it and she sure as hell was not going to get one to take it down.

Permits are just another revenue stream for bureaucracy, big or small.

Originally Posted by mopar34

In the small town that I grew up in my mother used to raise chickens. As she got older she didn't have chickens any longer so she wanted to tear down the old chicken coop (about 40 years old). Town told her she needed a permit to tear it down. So she waited until the first good windstorm, and she used her lawn tractor and pushed it down. Told neighbors the wind did it.

She told me she didn't need a permit to build it and she sure as hell was not going to get one to take it down.

Permits are just another revenue stream for bureaucracy, big or small.

Country smarts in action. PERFECT.

permit? I don' need no stinking permit!

The back half of my house used to be a trailer. The front half was added as an addition with a full truss roof over the whole mess.

The trailer caught fire, and so I pulled it out and demolished it. Built the entire rear half of the house, even enlarged the foot print slightly.

Was I required permits? you bet. BUT.. the only permit I actually applied for was the electrical permit, to get a new service entrance. I could have just re-done it the way it was before, ( feeding off the adjacent building ) and even put it to code.. but wanted the separate entrance.

I suppose nosy neighbors would have forced me to work in the system, but I slipped through the cracks.

I am planning to put up a large awning in front ( see : roof ) yeah, very large. I DON'T plan to get a permit. I figure if the work is up and done in a weekend, then they can just sit and stew.

I'm sure it helps that I am two miles out of city limits as well. Unfortunately, I AM on a major roadway.

I brought in 165 large dump truck loads of dirt into my back yard, and I had my house wrapped and vinyl siding put on, and completely remodeled the walkout basement, 4 new entry doors, I didn't need to get a permit, but when I had the house reroofed, and 8 new windows, I needed one!

Pat

About 7 years ago I bought an old house w/ a high bank waterview om Bainbridge Island in WA state. It was an old summer cabin that had been built in the late '40s and been udgraded and expanded over the years, then the owners rented it out for about about 10-12 years. The house was structurally sound just needed some serious updating and modernization. The lot in back to the waterfront bank was overgrown with 4th and 5th growth timber, mostly shallow root larch and Manzanita, and russian blackberry, Scotch broom( both non-native)fern and holly, pretty much blocking out a view of Rich Passage from the house, a big selling point for the house and property.
I planned on "flipping" this place and obtained all the permits needed for the remodel from the city, fair enough, especially when I was in the building business, and submitted the paperwork for all the necessary permits for clearing the land and wild growth timber to the Fed EPA, the State Forestry and EPA and the City of BI, Forestry and EPA dept, about $3,000 in fees.
Well I recieved an Ok from the Feds and from State Forestry and EPA. The City of BI Forestry dept and EPA dept is staffed by greenies. The inspector came out to see what I was planning to remove Ok'd the blackberry and Scotch broom and said no way to the timber and holly. Well I blew up at her and pointed out the Feds and State had no problems. She got in hissy fit and made a few rude and unprofessional comments and red flagged any further landscaping. I immediately got on the phone with the city, and within an hour her boss and her were back out on the site. I had met him through the building Dept though I didn't much deal with him. I explained to him exactly what I wanted to do and basically went through the same routine and explanation with him, he turned around to the inspector and told her to leave the paperwork and get back to the office then signed off the permit.

As it was I made a pretty more than fair profit on the property. I have found that if you're pleasant to the the inspectors and the people in the building dept., unless they are way pumped up with their "percieved" power, you generally won't have a problem. And yes some municipalites are worse than others when it comes to fees etc for any type of building and it is a source of income for the city or town but having seen over the years some of the homeowner built structures that have not been inspected or approved ---yikes!
One other thing if you do build or add an addition without a permit and ever decide to sell your property you may find it harder to do because many lending institutions and home inspectors will now check with building depts
to check if proper permits were filed ,issued, and passed.