Tips on What to Do or Not to Do for your Building Permits


Tips on What to Do or Not to Do for your Building Permits

This advice is for small businesses and business startups.

Majority of the people that I work that need help with their building permits are small businesses and business start-ups. I find that a big part of the success of the building permit process lies in the know-how of the people working on the building permit and the preparation that goes with the application itself.  There should really be no guesswork in this process.

When I say permitting process, I mean the permitting process to get approved to build so that you can get a building permit. Approval of the building permit lies with the City. County or the Authority of Jurisdiction. The application, the review and the approval process - if it's not planned and prepared properly can be excruciatingly painful. It really leads to considerable delays in the projects. There are jurisdictions that require a huge amount of paperwork and more processing time than the average time of 4 to 6 weeks for a renovation/ tenant improvement work.

Here are the Tips on What to Do for your Building Permits:

1. Do not Do it Yourself.

I know for a small business, given the limited resources- there is a tendency to do the work on your own. I would not advise this. The building permit process in itself takes time and considerable know how to be done properly. I've seen it time and time again. If you do it on your own, you will certainly make mistakes and sometimes to the detriment of the business. 

Some of these mistakes are not minor ones. It's not just delays, it can even come to the point that you might not even open business. I will cite some examples of these mistakes/ incidents further in this post.

2. Get Professional Help.

It's nice that a friend of yours offered their help, but you should really investigate whether they are truly qualified for your project. The project size does not matter. It is the same amount of work, sometimes even more for a small job. 

Check the person's credentials, references, kind of projects, portfolio and experience. Residential experience is very different with commercial experience.  Someone who is adept in designing a house may not be suitable in designing a commercial job.

The scope of work should be very clear. 
Are they preparing the building permit package for you? 
Does that include filling out the forms?
Are they preparing the drawings? 
Are they submitting the building permit application to the City?  

At the end of the day, hiring a professional will give you more value for your project/ building permit. It will certainly save you time and money if you hire a professional.

3. Proper Design and Drawings.

It is very important to design things to code. And this is to my point, that you should hire a professional. Certainly you cannot produce your own drawings, Do not waste your time trying out a drafting software.

The project should be designed to code from the beginning. And so, if you have a small renovation, these are some of the things to consider in the building permit:

  •  Exits, should be 2 exits, if you have one exit, make sure you meet code for one exit
  •  Barrier free - there should be provisions for barrier free - path of travel, width of the aisles, width of the corridor, washrooms
  • Washrooms - number of toilets, barrier free toilet
  • Fire rating - the party wall/ demising wall is usually fire rated wall, storage room and mechanical rooms are normally required to be fire rated
  • Building description - is the building sprinklered or not? how many stories? This affects the code requirements of your job

All those code issues should be incorporated in the design from the beginning.
Once the drawing have been submitted to the City, it is not easy to change it afterwards.
Unless it is very minor, you might end up applying for a revision or the City asking for another review. All of that can further delay your project and prolong your building permit review.

4. Do not Building without a Permit. 

This is a major no no. 
If you are building without a permit, then you are doing an illegal action.
You can be penalized, you are exposed to more liability. The city would declare the site as not safe, City can ask for to remove what you have built, you will get a bad reputation with the City.  
The List is endless.

Besides, you would not be able to get occupancy. You need the occupancy permit for you to be able to operate in the place and get the business license. 

It is not worth taking the risk.

To prevent this, plan your project way ahead of time. Give yourself one to 2 months of planning and preparing the drawings, one to 2 months review from the City. So about 4 months or more. 


5. Check the Location.

Check if you are properly zoned in that location. Check if the business and the use is allowed in that location. This mistake I see quite regularly, specially the start-ups. It's even goes as far as signing up leases and realizing that they cannot use the place for their business. That's why you should hire a professional to check it for you, do not rely on the realtor. 

There is even an incident where the City has given them a license to operate in that location, only for the owner to find out that they could not. The way the City operates is that the department who handles the licensing, is not the department that handles zoning or  building permit application. This information on zoning and use is sometimes not coordinated with the licensing.  So be careful.


In closing, my advice is to do your homework and follow these tips that I have discussed. I have also prepared a short video, please see link below.







Thanks for reading my post, and Good Luck to your Project.

***************************************************************

Feel free to contact us at info@zuluetaarchitecture.com
https://www.facebook.com/zuluetaarchitecture/


https://www.linkedin.com/in/joann-zulueta-4a6b0455/


http://www.youtube.com/c/zuluetaarch 





Location: Calgary, AB, Canada

Comments

Post a Comment

Hello,

We appreciate your feedback and we will get back to you shortly.

Regards,

Joann Zulueta

Popular posts from this blog

How to Become a Licensed Architect in Canada

Image
How to Become a Licensed Architect in Canada  is a question I get asked a lot given that I got my professional training outside of Canada.  I was a licensed architect in the Philippines prior to coming to Canada. I get fairly regular queries from internationally trained architects, from different backgrounds,  who are close to  migrating to Canada or architects that are already in Canada and needs some insight in getting their architectural license, accreditation and the Canadian experience. Architectural Job First things first, it would be best to get employed working as an architectural designer in an architectural firm. When I was a newcomer to Canada, I landed in British Columbia and that was where I started to look for work. It was very hard to find work in my field at that time. I think it was a combination of lack of Canadian experience plus the economy was not too good. Looking back that was almost 20 years ago now, year 2000. After assessing my situation in BC, I wa
Read more

How to Design A Restaurant to Building Code

Image
How To Design A Restaurant to Building Code.  One of the more popular small businesses that I have worked with are restaurants. The restaurant business, specially for a newbie, poses its own unique challenges and can be quite daunting in the beginning. There are requirements in terms of design, building code and permitting that are very specific to a restaurant project.  This post offers advice mainly to business start-ups and small business owners in planning and designing for a small restaurant, specially their first one.  A small restaurant, for the purpose of this discussion,  are restaurants that have floor areas from 1,000 square foot to 2,000 square foot and has a dining area.  The reference in code will be the Alberta Building Code. Here are the items to consider: SEATING The seating and the number of seats is critical to the success of the restaurant. The more seats you have, the more opportunities to generate revenue. To be allowed a certain number of  people
Read more

Philippine Architect Salary vs. Other Asian Architects: A Snapshot

Image
2015 Architect Salary Guide: Philippines, China, HK, Singapore by Zulueta Architecture Take a look at the Architect Salary Guide Table, this is based on 2015 Hays Salary Guide- Asia, 2015 Adrem Group Salary Guide and 2015 JobStreet Salary Report. I converted the salaries to US dollars per month and the data on all these reports are comparable. Its a snapshot of salaries, it does not mention cost of living but check the compensation for a Filipino Architect compared to your Asian neighbors.  If you start off with China, on the average, you are paid a third less.  HK and Singapore rates are fairly close to North American rates. Are you any less talented or are will you work any less harder than your counterparts in Asia ? No . The problem is Philippine economy – salaries has not improved over the years. The Filipino salaries are still the same rates ten years ago and yet cost of living has gone up radically. Eventually you have to ask yourself, what is your future as a Filipino
Read more