Permit Delays
City employees need to be reminded they are here to serve us. Not stop us.
I’ve been quiet that last few months as we wait for permits. Tom put together a beautiful and very detailed set of plans. This is a simple < 110% rebuild with no basement. We submitted on March 20th.
Based on other’s experiences we knew to expect our initial corrections quite quickly and we were able to pick up our corrections on April 7th — less than 3 weeks later — not bad. As we had hoped the corrections were more about syntax than semantics, a good sign.
Much noise has been made around the removal of the soils report requirements. We double checked that we were exempt before submitting our plans by checking the requirements HERE and the map HERE. We were a little surprised that a GPI or “Grading Pre-Inspection” was still required but told ourselves this must just be part of the process and we needed time to integrate the (often pedantic) corrections anyway.
However once a few weeks went by with no GPI clearance we started to get frustrated but had only just recently completed all corrections anyway.
After a month the GPI Report came back: SOILS REPORT REQUIRED.
No explanation. No details. Tom reached out to the inspector, the plan checker, and his supervisor. No response for several days.
We speculated this was about our plan to replace a rear ~42” retaining wall, but could not be certain and were anxious to get our corrections submitted.
After several days of being ignored, I personally went down to “The Palisades Inspections and Permitting Support Center”. I brought my mom — I wanted to make sure they knew who this was affecting.
After virtually no wait — but still being required to fill out a form for some reason — I explained our situation to the staff member assisting us. An email was composed and sent to our plan check team requesting more information.
Feeling like we had not made any real progress, I prodded the staff member for more information. The individual agreed it may be the retaining wall but asked us if we had marked on our plans we were “self certifying our R&R”. R&R is short for removal & recompaction — a process by which you ensure the dirt under your foundation meets the assumed conditions set by the engineer.
I said I didn’t know — I would have assumed that not submitting a soils report makes it abundantly clear that we were planning to do whatever is required when not submitting a soils report…
The staff member speculated that such an omission could be an issue as well. I began to get frustrated. Why are we speculating? How is it possible LADBS employees have no way of looking up the reasoning behind a GPI report’s findings? How is it that including a completely redundant sentence on our plans could possibly be whats standing between us and permits? I expressed this sentiment.
I was informed that I should be grateful for this free consulting service the city is providing. I also was informed that I should have brought my plans down to the Palisades Inspections and Permitting Support Center before submitting despite being told that we could not submit plans there.
I suggested that LADBS should have a Palisades Rebuild specific checklist. I was told to take it up with the Mayor’s office.
I begin to feel bad.
This man might not have lost his house and town, but the city seems to have taken more from him than me.
We still don’t know why we were asked to provide a soils report.
Takeaways for non yellow/orange PGRAZ properties:
Make sure all retaining walls are on separate permits
Include a highly visible note that states your soils engineer will self-certify R&R
Provide additional redundant note that states there will be no excavation of more than 5 ft.
Run your plans by the The Palisades Inspections and Permitting Support Center first even though you can’t submit there.