In March 2009, Covington ran an article in The Reporter about the

“Benefits of Building Permits”. A later article identified a feature on their (city’s) Web site to report neighbors “building” anything so the city can ensure they have a building permit.

About that time, we began work on a 10 foot by 20 foot covered deck on the back of our home. We soon found out that we needed a permit for this project. Our contractor drew up a quick plan and went to get the permit. The process was not as easy as the article made it sound.

The permit fee would be $635! Their review indicated three “non-

prescriptive” issues with the design. Two of them were quickly

resolved with more information. The third had to do with the sub-

structure and they required and engineering review. So we hired an

engineer for another $250, and the results showed our design only

loaded the sub-structure at 60 percent. I’m surprised the city engineers couldn’t figure that out for just a deck. The city was not satisfied either with the hand-drawn plan, so we had to have a full blue-print drawn up adding more costs by our contractor.

Our deck was completed and the code inspector said this was the

strongest deck he has ever seen. We used 6 inch by 6 inch treated posts spaced no more than 7 feet apart, with 2 feet square concrete footings and rebar.

Everything above the substructure was screwed in. Large bolts were

used at all beam intersections. Commercial trusses were used for the roof, and it was attached to the existing roof. The permit reviewers seemed to have a need to find something wrong.

After the city’s permit fee, the cost of the engineer and

contractor’s time, the added cost to our deck project was about

$1000. This seems highly unreasonable for a deck. I talked with my

niece who works for the city of Fallbrook, Calif. She said they charge a straight $200 permit fee for any deck, and this is in California.

So, I have to wonder what the $635 city fee went for. It could not have taken more than an hour or two to review the plans, and there were only two inspections (no more than an hour each even with travel). That’s a pretty hefty hourly rate. One could start to think these fees are just a money maker for the city and go well beyond safety issues.

Currently the fee is based on value of the project, but I had

no visibility into how that was calculated. I think the citizens of

Covington need to request a review of these fees.

And as far as reporting a neighbor to force them into this process,

forget it!I wouldn’t even do that to a neighbor I don’t get along

with, until it becomes more fair.

Gary Wigle

Covington