Hooray for our Building Permit*

I was joking with a friend that every milestone we reach on our project comes with an asterisk. Like when we finally got our financing approval, which was an incredible relief, right? Except…the financing isn’t actually enough, and we’ve immediately had to get to work on other ideas to cut cost and access more capital.

So here’s today’s version.

We finally got our Building Permit- hooray! Bring out the confetti and chocolate cake!

But*

First of all, it took a really long time and, second, I’m still getting over the sticker shock of what it cost us. Confetti doesn’t quite capture the mood, and we probably can’t afford that chocolate cake anymore.

how long it took

The City strives for a 20-day turnaround on permit reviews, although I was warned when I submitted that City staff are slammed.

The day I actually submitted in early March was already my second attempt. I had been turned away by an initial scan in mid-February that revealed a few obvious inconsistencies with how the City wants things presented. So the permit process actually began for us nearly 4 months ago.

After officially submitting, City staff took 30 business days to review. So 6 weeks in real life. Every application wends its way from pile to pile and desk to desk. Engineering looks at it, parks looks at it, plumbing looks at it, and so on; each person adding their comments. Reviewers in two departments- Building Inspection and Plumbing Inspection- asked for a few changes, which took us 6 business days to turn around. The City then took another 24 business days to review those changes, our application once again passing across every desk. All told, it took 54 days of City review time to get our Building Permit, and 3 1/2 months in total time, including revisions on our end, since our first attempt to submit.

We do have to appreciate that the current level of construction activity in our fair city is unprecedented. Those who have worked in the industry here for decades say they’ve never seen it this busy. All you have to do is look around at all the cranes and holes in the ground to sympathize. City staff are working really hard with a daunting workload.

Still, it’s hard to not get frustrated by all the little details that have slowed things down and ultimately cost us money (our first construction loan advance is charging interest as I type!).

Here is one of the main details leading to the request to resubmit:

Our new neighbourhood plan specifically calls out ‘duplexes with suites’ as a desirable building form, meaning that the two main halves of the duplex can be titled separately, but the suite will always be a rental within one half. However, this building form does not exist in a code official’s mind because the building code does not specifically address it. As a result, while we intentionally designed it as a duplex + suite, the permit folks felt compelled to reclassify it as a “triplex”. This then required us to remove reference to certain parts of the building code, add extra fire separations, and change a few other details on our drawings. It is also likely to mean all manner of headache around shared ventilation and hot water systems further down the road – i.e. more cost to us.

Which leads us to…

how much it cost

The real asterisk dampening our ‘hooray’ moment is how much it cost to get our permit. We’re now pretty used to everything taking longer than hoped or expected. I suppose we’ve now also reached a point where we might as well get used to everything costing more than hoped or expected.

I had anticipated $10k for the permit itself (1.4% of construction cost, less plumbing and electrical, which are separate permits), plus ~$7,500 for a landscape deposit. This deposit is to ensure we actually do the landscaping work we promised as part of our Development Permit application. I’m not thrilled about this deposit, but it is described on the City’s website, so I’ve had a couple of months to get over it.

So how the heck did I end up writing a check for $50,784?!

There were two surprises that cha-chinged us up to this unpleasant total:

1. We pay for new city services up front in order to get in the queue for the City to do the installation (three to four months behind, by the way). So, $24,600 for new storm, sanitary and domestic water connections for each half of the duplex. We had expected to pay for this, but hadn’t realized it would be up front.
2. They took an $8,000 deposit for ‘new engineering works’. I had to call someone to learn what this was, because the staffer who initially helped me didn’t know, and neither did the staffer she called over who knew more than she did. This one is to make sure we build the new driveway and sidewalk to City specs. OK…but isn’t that the whole point of the Building Permit itself – granting permission to build something with the expectation and promise that we build it as shown in the drawings?

I’m frankly a little enraged about that one. Are we getting paid back with interest? Don’t know. And because there is no paperwork beyond a line item on my receipt, I fear we will have to fight to get our deposit back.

So there you have it:

• $16,184 for ‘refundable’ deposits;
• $10,000 for our Permit proper, and
• $24,600 for new City services.

I can see why some developers raise the white flag and go to Langford where you can get a building permit in 48 hours for a fraction the cost!

Hey, I have an idea! How about permit rebates or waived deposits for people building ultra low energy projects? We are helping the City meet its climate goals after all, and leapfrogging all the way to the 2030 end of our new BC Energy Step Code. And so far, we’re just another folder on a pile of endless, helpless applications.

Alright, enough complaining.

I’ll close out today’s post with a puzzle. Spot what’s different about our house in these two photos. Winner gets a pile of early 20th century bricks!