The need for a garage permit will depend upon on where you live. Knowing what is required is important and will save you time and money. Do some reading and you can find many stories rom people building their garage about permits both good and bad. Do your homework and find out what is needed so that you don’t end up wasting time and money.
Stopping a moment here, many tasks were going on at the same time in this phase. It would be a good place to step back and read the article about how some decisions were made. At this point in this article I had settled in on many of the details about the garage. There weren’t any commitments as of yet but I was getting closer.
Property Setbacks
Where I live a ten foot setback on the sides and rear is required for a garage permit. After some consideration I decided on making it approximately 12 feet on both the rear and side of the garage. This creates some extra room for maybe a vehicle, trailer or storage.
Property Lines and a Land Survey
The property lines are probably my first real snag in getting a garage permit underway. Oddly my property was split into two separate lots. These would need to be combined to allow a building to be built within specifications. The township indicated a property survey would need to be done and change plans would need to be filed with the county.
In order to get these plans I needed to have a survey completed. That would identify all the property markers and create the start of an official document. The task of getting two properties combined into one required a fair amount of phone calls to find a survey company that understood what I needed.
The survey company did a nice job and was able to locate all of the property corners. They placed stakes in the ground to indicate everything which is nice just for my own reference. Now I know exactly where the corners are which makes indicating the setbacks easier when I file for the garage permit. After the survey company completed their work I needed to get everything filed so it was all official. I can say it didn’t take long for an adjusted tax bill to show up.
Remember during this phase I was also working out what kind of garage I was going to have built and who was going to build it. If you missed that part give it a read to know how I got to this point.
Finally Filing the Garage Permit
I was ready to get on with filing for the garage permit since all the red tape with the property was resolved. My township provided me with a packet that listed all the rules and requirements which was very helpful for making sure everything was accounted for. Several inspections are required including the post holes, framing and electrical.
The permit required submission of building plans that included information from the builder, dimensions of the building and electrical specifications. Filling everything out took some time even though I had much of the plan pieces ready. Listing the electrical layout on the application took me quite a bit of time since I hadn’t fully considered how it was all going to be done. I will detail the electrical items later.
After submitting the paperwork and paying the bill I received a message a few days later asking for some clarification of construction methods. All of these items were part of the builders job so they were able to answer the questions quickly. Soon after I had a call that the garage permit was approved and I could stop and pickup the packet which meant the project could officially get rolling.
The next steps were working the details out with the builder and excavator. Here we go!