The Green Light
Building Permits Approved
We’re happy to announce that as of 1/6/21, we have received all of the permits required to start building! For those who have been following closely, the short answer is - yes, we technically did have all of the building permits when we originally signed onto this deal. Within the whirlwind of 2020, the entire Building Department in the city of Portland turned over and we had to start back at square one.
Even though the building permit approval process can be incredibly frustrating, there’s a reason that they’re so important.
Let’s have a little storytime.
In 1992, Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida with vengeance. Think wind speeds of 170 miles an hour. Ultimately, the storm destroyed more than 53,000 homes, at a cost of $25 billion, but part of this damage could have been prevented. Inadequate codes, shoddy construction, and -- believe it or not -- lax enforcement of building permits contributed significantly to the destruction.
Isn't a building permit just a nuisance that plagues every construction project? Isn't it just a way for bureaucrats to tell you what you can and can't do on your own property?
That's how a lot of people think of building permits, but something like a natural disaster can be a wake-up call. The fact is, the building permit process can save your life. It can also play a big role in protecting the value of your property.
Building permits are the way counties, towns, and municipalities enforce their building codes. Local governments adopt these codes in order to ensure that all buildings meet minimum safety and structural standards and they update them every few years as new building methods and materials are introduced.
Hurricane Andrew caused many Florida communities to beef up building codes and to enforce permits more rigorously. From their beginning, building codes and permits have often been responses to disaster.
In 1625, the Dutch West India Company addressed problems of fire and poor sanitation by passing a building code for “New Amsterdam”, which we now know as New York.
A devastating London fire in 1666 led to the London Building Act.
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 resulted in new regulations there four years later.
Today, those initial responses to disasters have grown into comprehensive building codes for both commercial and residential construction. They're common in America, Europe, and many other parts of the world. Many states and municipalities base their own codes on “model codes”, which have been around since 1905 when the National Board of Fire Underwriters published the first set in the United States.
There you have it, friends, a little background in the importance of getting us to our “green light” and we couldn’t be more thrilled to break ground!