Waxing on about the perils of planning departments...

I'm a Certified Interior Designer (CID) in the state of California. For those of you following along, there is a distinction between interior designers and interior decorators. The latter are referred to as "pillow fluffers", which does them a great disservice. (Try selecting from 40,000 fabrics without a firm grounding in thread count, weave, and the dyeing process, and see how far you get.) Some CIDs do both, for which they have my awe and admiration.

Growing up on the construction side, I prefer to work with the structural aspects, adding windows, doors, raising ceilings, adding columns, opening up rooms. My world is more about the "articulation of space" (this is a favoured phrase among architects and must be used as many times as possible when working with them), the structural codes, the safety regulations, and the city planning departments.

One of the exciting things about working with planning departments is how consistent they can be in their inconsistencies.



Case in point: a current project with a kitchen and an attic space converted to a storage room on the top floor. The clients wanted to add a window to the room, which means getting an engineer to "wet stamp" the drawings - ie. calculate the load shift so that the house/roof doesn't fall down, and stamping the drawings signifying that he assumes all responsibility.

Sometimes an engineer isn't required, but we're a cautious sort: we wanted to be sure. I drafted up all the plans, floor layouts of the entire house, exterior elevations, etc. two months in advance, so the boss could head out to said planning department for a pre-check.

(I should note that some planning departments are very capable and easy to work with; some have let the incredible amount of building in their city go to their heads. We're talking about the latter.)

Yes, the plan checker said. No problem - no engineering is needed.

But there's a vaulted ceiling from 5'0" at one side to 9'9" at the other. It doesn't satisfy the 7'6" height rule, the boss says.

Not a worry, Mr. Checker says. It's not a room being lived in, right? Everything should be fine.

(Can you guess what's coming? I knew you could...)

Boss heads out to get the permit yesterday. I'm meeting the client at the house for a pre-construction meeting with the project manager. I get a phone call from the boss. He'll be right over.

"When I went up to the front desk, he was having a big old fight with the person in front of me," the boss told me later. "He's a good guy to work with, but I knew I should have walked out and come back later. By the time I got up to the desk, he was a bit riled up and starting demanding a whole bunch of things."

Engineering. And Title 24 (Energy code requirement for California, involving an outside source and paperwork to beat the band) and a room 7'6" wide x 7'6" high. The first two are somewhat costly, but solveable; the last is impossible unless we saw off half the roof or build out the room so it butts against the bed in the master bedroom.

Yeah. That'll happen. :P

We can't figure out the demand for the sudden 7'6" room width requirements - bathrooms are smaller than that. However,as with all absolute monarchies, you can't go back to plead your case when the figurehead has announced, "Off with your head!" Those of you who have argued your case with planning departments know exactly what I'm talking about.

We're going to get a separate permit for the kitchen; thankfully we can do that as there's nothing in the structural conditions to impact an over-the-counter permit. The other part we'll figure out next week, which will probably involve treating the storage space as non-conditioned (no heating/air conditioning or height requirements)room, getting the engineering done, etc., etc.

Hopefully over a lot of alcoholic bevvies...

Off to work now.