3 Special Meeting with City Council - State Building Code

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1/14/2016 Plumbing permits are not required for the clearing of plumbing stoppages,provided the work does not involve or require the replacement or rearrangement of valves, pipes, or fixtures. Should equipment replacement or repairs need to be performed in an urgent situation,a permit application can be submitted to the building official the next business day. Application for a permit is not required for ordinary repairs to a structure. The repairs shall not however, include the cutting away of any wall, partition, or portion of a wall or partition,the removal or cutting of any structural beam or load bearing support, or the removal or change of any required means of egress, or rearrangement of parts of a structure affecting the egress requirements;nor shall ordinary repairs include addition to,alteration of,replacement, or relocation of any standpipe,water supply, sewer, drainage, drain leader, gas, soil,waste, vent or similar piping, electric wiring, or mechanical or other work affecting public health or general safety. PLAN REVIEW On the surface, many believe that code enforcement is simply going to a construction site and inspecting construction activity in progress. If building code violations are found, orders are written and corrective action required. Simple as it sounds,this kind of code enforcement alone would actually add cost to most projects and serve the public interest poorly. In contrast,the idea of"plan review"is characterized by the building official's ability to address code issues ahead of time,thereby providing a cost savings to the owner through a more effective construction schedule and the cost savings that might otherwise be used by making required on-site corrections after the fact. Plan review can also serve to promote a positive and more open form of communication between the building official and their customers. Plan review takes time. It can range anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or two on most of the smaller residential types of projects. It can however, also take upwards of 20 to 40 hours per project on those larger commercial, industrial, or institutional types of projects. There may also be added time resulting from required changes or correspondence exchanges between the building official and a designer or building owner. In terms of the complexity of a project,the building official may even opt to contract out a portion or even all of the plan review to a third party. For some types of projects, construction plan review may need to be handled by a state or federal agency beforehand too. Examples of this may include public school district projects in excess of$100,000, hospitals or nursing home projects, and other state owned or state licensed facility projects. In some cases, state and/or federal laws may mandate other governmental agency review in addition to any local government review procedure. An example of this would be those commercial and/or multi-family dwelling projects where the plumbing plans must be reviewed and approved by the Minnesota CCLD— Plumbing Code Unit before a plumbing permit can be issued. Because of the time and complexities involved with plan review, a municipality may elect to collect plan review fees in addition to the actual building permit fee. 11