Building Permit Approved
Life of a Construction Project Series
Walking into the San Francisco Department of Building Inspections at 1660 Mission Street can be like walking into a scene from a Kafka novel, or Dante’s Inferno. There are 6 floors, each it’s own version of hell if you find yourself there under the wrong circumstances. The first floor is the city’s first line of defense against anyone trying to make improvements to their property, where you fill out your permit application and get entered into the system. On the left is the desk where the building department initially processes your application. On the right is the Planning department, where they do everything they can to confuse you and dissuade you from doing anything that involves planning approval. The San Francisco planning department is often referred to as a black hole, where your project plans disappear forever, unable to escape the gravitational pull created by the sheer density of bureaucracy.
Lucky for me I get to walk right past the black hole, careful not to get too close lest I might get sucked in. A trick the City sometimes plays on unsuspecting applicants is that they tell you that you need to talk to planning when you really don’t. This can easily eat up weeks of planning time and lead to major confusion for no reason. When you inevitably circle back to the building department and tell them all about the saga you endured at their direction you’ll get a blank stare accompanied by an offhand ‘who told you you needed to do that?’ from the same person that told you you needed to do that.
To avoid this pitfall you need to understand where the event horizon for the black hole is, and that is found in the scope description for your project. The first step in the process of obtaining a building permit is filling out your application on the first floor. It’s deceptively simple, and the implications of what you write down here are not immediately apparent. What you put down on the application will influence what departments you get routed to for review, how much you end up paying in fees, and how carefully your project is scrutinized by the plans examiners.
The general rule of thumb here is to say as little as possible about your project without being outright dishonest. Stretching the definitions of terms like ‘in-kind’, ‘replace existing’, and ‘upgrade current’ can make a major renovation project sound like a complicated light bulb change. This is what you want, for your project to sound as simple and straightforward as possible. This applies generally to the whole process of obtaining a building permit: speak only when spoken to, answer the question only, DO NOT VOLUNTEER ANY INFORMATION! This is your mantra. Oh, and do what you’re told. This last one can be the most difficult but you’ll find that if you trust the process, don’t overthink things, and just do what they ask you to do things will go much better for you. You can argue with them, ask them for workarounds, tell them they’re crazy and walk out in a huff, but you will have to walk right back in eventually, if you want your permit, sit down at the same desk and sheepishly ask for forgiveness.
It was Friday morning when I went for the permit. I got a good omen right off the bat: primo parking spot on Mission directly in front of the door to the building department, which never happens. I had been in once before and done a test run. Got rejected due to insufficient plans; I had pushed my luck too far on the scope description and tried to convince them that the project didn’t require plans; that I was just redoing the bathrooms and kitchen in kind. No dice they told me, the new stairs cross the line. So I’m back now, armed with a stripped-down architectural plan that I’m betting is just enough to get me through. I check in on the first floor. Show them my permit app from the previous try and tell them the story. I’m back with plans I say, do I need to modify my app? The answer comes back: No you’re good to go, head to the fifth floor.
Stage 1 complete.
I get in the elevator and head to the fifth floor. The fifth floor. So much opportunity if the gods smile on you. If not you’ll leave questioning the decisions you made in your life that led you to have to come here in the first place. This place is not designed for the novice. The process is not written down anywhere, and if you miss a step you can derail the whole thing and have to start over. Given that the different queues can take hours to get through this is no small thing.
The first step is Intake, where a permit specialist looks at the application you filled out on the first floor, and also looks at your plans. They are checking for the technical stuff, font size, number of copies, title block, does the description on the plans match the description you wrote on the permit app, etc. I’m nervous because I know my plans are light. The font size isn’t regulation, but I didn’t want to hassle the architect to adjust it. I get lucky, or maybe it’s Friday working its’ magic. The Intake specialist breezes through and doesn’t even mention the font size. She stamps the plans and the application.
Stage 2 complete.
I head over to the other side of the 5th floor where the plans examiners live. I had put my name in the queue before heading to Intake to get ahead of the game and I’m looking pretty good, though it’s impossible to say how long it’ll take to get called. I got a tip from the Intake woman to get in line for Fire department review when I signed up in the building queue, I do this now. Do what they say and it will be alright I tell myself. Looking around the room I see the faces of the other applicants, some optimistic, some anxious, some clearly beaten down by repeated pointless rejection. You can tell who the pros are: they have special carts to hold their plans, which for a complex project can be hundreds of pages and weigh 20 or 30 pounds. These are the guys you don’t want in line in front of you; they can tie up a plans examiner for hours. Then there are the people who don’t have anything with them, they may just have a question, or maybe they don’t yet know what they’re in for and are living in blissful ignorance of what’s in store. It’s a crapshoot, there are four addresses on the list in front of me, not bad.
15 minutes later I get called. The plans examiners are divided into two categories, structural and non-structural. For plans that involve structural work, the plans examiners in SF are licensed structural engineers themselves. This is not a good thing for the applicant; engineers tend to be very detail oriented and picky, and they don’t have any real world building experience. They will make things more difficult than they need to be. For non-structural plans the examiners are typically building inspectors who have spent time in the field. These are my people, they know the deal and they understand the plight of the contractor. I’m saying that my plans are non-structural, even though you could probably make the argument that the stairs are a structural element, and if I’d asked anyone that’s what they would have told me. But I didn’t ask anyone, and I’m not going to make that argument myself, I’m going to keep my mouth shut and speak only when spoken to.
I got lucky again, my plans examiner is easy going, we’ll say his name is John. He looks the plans over and asks a few questions. I respond with as few words as possible. I resist the urge to make small talk, to volunteer any information about the project, however benign it may seem. I sit in silence, projecting confidence in the plans and mentally deflecting any possibility that John won’t sign off on the plans. He mentions the font size. I shrug and keep my mouth shut. He mentions the spiral stairs changing to normal framed staircase. Could this be a structural change? I shrug and keep my mouth shut. It’s Friday. Maybe on Monday this would be structural, but not on Friday, not with John. He knows what happens if he says the stairs are structural: I go back to the drawing board, have to hire a structural engineer and spend a thousand bucks for no good reason. He’s not going to do that to me, not today, it’s Friday after all, he’s not going to ruin my weekend over this.
After many shrugs and grunts of acknowledgment on my end, and lots of flipping back and forth and muttering to himself on his end it happens: green light, he’s going to stamp the permit and sign off.
Stage 3 complete.
Next is the Fire department. If all goes well this will be the last step before I get to the finish line and checkout. Fire is no joke in here. SF has a history of fire destroying large sections of the city. The city of San Francisco is one of only a handful of municipalities in the country that still requires the use of cast iron pipe in many buildings because they claim it helps reduce the spread of fire.
Fire is a life safety issue, and what the fire department says goes. I’m hoping for an N/A interpretation of my plans, that is, that the work I’m doing has no impact on the fire safety of the building. I feel confident that this is the case, and I wouldn’t try and massage it if it wasn’t; the last thing I want is to create a fire hazard on one of my projects. You never know how the Fire department is going to look at things though. The building I’m working on was built in 1995, and fire system requirements have changed since then. Maybe this is a good opportunity to ask for the system to be upgraded. Maybe we don’t have the latest fire monitoring technology in the building. They have the right to ask for these things if they want to, and they are not small things. Anything fire-related in a multi-family building is going to cost big bucks. If I have to touch the fire system, whether to add sprinkler heads, upgrade the monitoring system, etc. it’s going to cost tens of thousands of dollars. She mentions the font size. Too small she says, how did I get this far? I shrug and grunt. It’s Friday I think to myself, that’s how. It’s not her place to bust me for the font size, the Intake specialist should have done that, or John, but not her. Font size doesn’t affect life safety.
She has to decide whether the scope of the project requires that a fire official visit the site and inspect, or if the building inspector can make the call about whether we’ve got sufficient sprinkler head coverage. I’m holding my breath. Fire official means resources on her end, time and money that could go to something else, something more important perhaps. But she can’t compromise life safety, she weighs the decision. She stalls and goes to talk to John about the font. Why is it so small she asks? How did it get this far? John mutts to himself, he’s busy with another applicant. Fire inspector comes back. It’s your lucky day she says, I’m giving you N/A. I let out my breath.
Stage 4 complete.
So far this has gone well. I’ve been at the building department for about an hour and I’m almost done, just one more step. This should be easy, but I remind myself that one false step and the whole thing could come crashing down. What I’m most worried about is the licensing requirements for the project. I have my class B license, but this building, even though it’s residential, was originally permitted as live/work, which is a commercial designation. I don’t have my commercial GC license, are they going to bust me for that? I don’t know, I’m just going to keep my head down and hope for the best.
I sign in at the checkout counter. I’m the only one, I get called immediately. Good start. The woman is in a good mood, it’s Friday after all. She doesn’t have my SF business tax license on file she says, she’ll need a copy before she can proceed. I’ve got one on my phone I say. Great, I email it to her, crisis averted, thanks Apple and Gmail. We make small talk, I’m not worried that she’s going to question anything about the plans, not her role, she just crunches the numbers. The calculations for the permit fee are pretty straightforward, but there is some subjectivity to it and she can tip the scales one way or the other and I want them tipped in my favor if possible. Things go well, 10 minutes and $1600 later I’m on my way, permit in hand and smile on my face. I head back to the elevator, hit the button for the 1st floor.
Stage 5 complete.
All in all, things went as well as they possibly can at the building department. Even considering this was my second try for the permit, I was pleasantly surprised that I made it out of there with the permit, and not so much as a scratch really. It’s funny that even though I wasn’t trying to do anything complicated, shady, or complex, my expectation when dealing with municipalities is that no matter what you’re trying to do they’re going to find a way to make it more difficult than it should be. I have a few theories as to why this is, but I think mostly it’s just that people tend to want something to do, and signing off on a permit without putting you through the wringer first is just way less interesting. Today I got lucky, but my timing was good too. Don’t order fish on Monday’s, go for your permit on Fridays.
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