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I surfed the blogs local to my city this evening and, from one, wound up at the city's site where I could look up who had taken out building permits, when, for what purpose, etc. I wanted to check it out because a handsome sort of Mediterranean-Art Deco building nearby has some odd construction in progress on its roof. The blogger had tried to check city records to find out what the thing on the roof was to be. Huh, the site shows no permits for that address in the last three years.
So I poked around, looking up my house and the two adjacent to mine. Sure enough my house shows the permit I took out for demolishing half of my detached garage and buiding in its place a large attached pergola. It shows my estimated costs, which I remember filing with the permit application. Funny, not a single other permit record I saw on the site shows estimated costs. What, am I the only sucker who made public this info? Everyone else just leaves the spot blank on the ap?
One house adjacent to me, had some work done which I am sure was never inspected and probably never permitted, so I was not surprised there was no record. But for the other house--there was major work done by the contractor son-in-law of the owner a few years ago. Wall tear downs, two new bathrooms (one of them entirely new, not just a remodel) new electricity, new kitchen, sewer work---It was a gut rehab, for goodness sake. But is there even a single permit record? No.
I know a lot of people hate the idea of building permits. But is it the rule of thumb that everyone just ignores them if they think they can get by with it? Might be the case in my city.
So I poked around, looking up my house and the two adjacent to mine. Sure enough my house shows the permit I took out for demolishing half of my detached garage and buiding in its place a large attached pergola. It shows my estimated costs, which I remember filing with the permit application. Funny, not a single other permit record I saw on the site shows estimated costs. What, am I the only sucker who made public this info? Everyone else just leaves the spot blank on the ap?
One house adjacent to me, had some work done which I am sure was never inspected and probably never permitted, so I was not surprised there was no record. But for the other house--there was major work done by the contractor son-in-law of the owner a few years ago. Wall tear downs, two new bathrooms (one of them entirely new, not just a remodel) new electricity, new kitchen, sewer work---It was a gut rehab, for goodness sake. But is there even a single permit record? No.
I know a lot of people hate the idea of building permits. But is it the rule of thumb that everyone just ignores them if they think they can get by with it? Might be the case in my city.
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