Hi Kat, We just received our approved building permit from the city of Oakland last month and the fee schedule/structure was never clearly identified in our opinion. In Oakland I would wait a year or two until authorities have cleaned house in the building department and the corruption is removed. In Oakland, CEDA officials seem to think that homeowners exist to serve them, and they have been given implicit leeway to bilk citizens of this city. The House is composed of 75 members, who serve two-year terms, and represent approximately 40,000 citizens each. In other words, the Building Dept. exists to serve the homeowner. Oakland CEDA’s Building Dept. is notorious for squeezing every last dime out of homeowners and making their lives a living hell. I agree with a previous answer about Oakland permitting being hell on wheels. I’ve heard of people having awful experiences with Oakland permits, but ours was actually a very positive one. We did a 2nd story addition in Oakland in 2009. We did require one conditional use permit but otherwise our contractor said our project was very routine.
Or should we just retrofit the rest of the story and replace the patio door with a new one? Then in additional to the building permit, you are likely required to apply for separate plumbing and electrical permits(one of few cities that charges these permits separate from the general building permit). The permits you’ll be applying for are Building, Electrical and Plumbing. Build it to code if you can, but avoid the permits. As a general contractor I would recommend getting the permits for the work you are describing, and unless there are existing building code violations that are obvious to the inspector I would not expect that the inspector would bring up projects that pre-date your ownership of the home. Here is how the thing works: the inspector for the kitchen is obliged to officially review the work you will obtain your permit for (the kitchen) and basement finishing companies near me that’s it. If you have a pretty good idea about what’s being added, it is not a bad idea to go into the city and do a preliminary review with the city to find out exactly what you need for the submitting process, and they will give you some idea on the cost for prepare for multiple trips to the city if you plan to get the permits yourself.
You are right to be concerned about work done by previous homeowners, but more because it might not have been done correctly than that you will have to pay for their decision to do it under the radar. It is common to understate the project value, the City has the right to obtain proof of cost, though that is very rare. 1800-2200 range it depends on the costs to do the project and how much you disclose to the city. The average gut job, which entails a new layout, costs $30,000 to $80,000. We’ve tried to make sense of the 159 page Master Fee Document published by the city, but every kind of inspection, review, etc. was listed and we couldn’t find a definitive answer about costs. I can’t say how much the permits will be – this is the kind of project that often does not include an Architect.
4. I am working with an architect who doesn’t do cad-he draws everything and seems glacially slow. There have been cases (again, I know some people personally who this happened to) where they wait until the construction is all done and then make you tear it down, in addition to charging humongous (at their whim, but often tens of thousands of dollars) in penalties, plus interest that starts adding up if you don’t pay right away (and the deadlines are unclear). We already have a french drain and they would like to know if they can hook their system up to ours? We’d like to replace the door before we re-carpet. They were also pretty flexible and reasonable when considering some of our atypical approaches to things like meeting the Title 24 requirements. We are considering a remodel and small addition to our home and heard Oakland’s permit fees have recently gone through the roof. I’ve been associated with a tear down of an existing house and construction of a new one in San Mateo County where we are in the 2nd year of work, and still have yet to go before the Coastal Commission or the County Building Department.