Back on TRack

March 2011

Close to a year after the first post and many headaches dealing with the bureaucracy of the building permit department at city hall, we finally have our permits in hand. Since the last post, we went to the Committee of Adjustment twice for the same design and issues. This is because after we were approved in the summer of 2010, the city passed new zoning bylaws at the end of the summer - completely taking everyone by surprise including their own staff. Their new zoning bylaw was simply a harmonization of the various bylaws in multiple municipalities into one. This did not make sense and still does not make sense to their own internal staff in the building permit department. We fought to have our approved project not be subjected to the new laws as a few critical bylaws that did not exist before in our area were now putting our design at risk. Without help from our councillor (who got booted in the municipal election late last year), we had to go to the Committee of Adjustment one more time at the end of 2010. We were again approved and then the dance with the zoning inspector started. This process delayed us by 4 additional months. I am going to get this off my chest once and for all: Why did we pay for a PAL review prior to COA? I believed the PAL review was sufficient to address all the zoning and building codes of the project. This new person forced us to make several revisions to our drawing and sometimes forgot to check his files for items we had already submitted. Anyway, all is done now and we have the permits in hand.

We selected a contractor after the first COA decision last summer and after reviewing 4 offers. We will be sitting down with our contractor to review his costs again prior to signing the contract and providing the big deposit for this project. During the time we were going to the COA for a second time, our contractor built a new house on a street just north of us and I had a chance to go look at his work again before the owner moved in. He did a fantastic job. Next update will be about how we selected our contractor and designer as many of our friends who are thinking of doing a reno have asked us this question.

To summarize, be patient with the CITY and fully understand the bylaws, the process and stay on top of this process yourself in order to drive it to fruition. Also make sure your architect is working for you.