Building permit issued

The building permit for our Richmond location in SW Calgary has been issued.  This completes a lengthy and costly permitting process, that, start to finish, took over one year.  The building permit component was much quicker than the development permit component, as we were fortunate enough to be assigned to a plans examiner that offers quick turn-around on most items.

The outcome of the building review was as follows:

a) requirement to install shoring to protect the sides of the excavation hole from collapse.  The final additional cost of complying with this request will be between $10-20k, depending on how the soil investigations go and our install technique.  The actual merit of this work is debatable, on our last site we had zero issues with soil stability.  On the site previous, in an area renowned for poor soil conditions, we had no issues with soil stability, but we did have to install some foundation protection at a cost of less than $10k.  In my view, that was a total loss of $10k of construction budget.

b) requirement to install metal truss tails and non combustible truss details on side yard.  We are not yet sure the cost to comply with this item, as it largely depends on how long it takes the framers to work on it.  We expect, like any change involving new and uncommonly used material, this will end up costing 'a couple thousand'.

c) garage wall fire details such as non wood construction on the side yard wall and extra fire protection for the wall facing the building.  The incremental materials here are likely to add up to another 'couple thousand' including the labour for installation.  We are pretty sure our stucco crew will charge us a few extra dollars for stucco preparation, as they dislike working on metal studded walls as well.

Overall it appears we escaped the permitting process with our plans and vision for the site intact, and that is a major victory.  Permission to build the size and arrangement of our upscale units on the site is what makes the project economically possible and able to absorb the high cost of meeting all of the City requirements for engineering, storm and sewer management, and fire protection.  By the time we get to the framing of the roof of the house and garage, we will have had to sink an additional unplanned $20k into the project however....

This site use is approved without change at the BP stage

City permit is granted so construction can begin