2015: Greenhouse Building Permit

Looking online at local building codes for my county (it will be different for your municipality), it required the following (summarized):

1. Shall be located in the rear yard behind the house.
2. Must be located no closer than 5 feet to any side or rear property line.
3. The size shall not exceed the size of the existing house. If it is proposed to be greater than 500 square feet, it shall be finished in siding, stucco, or brick and shall not have a metal exterior finish.
4. A schematic of the design and a "to scale" drawing must be provided showing the proposed building or structure. The scale drawing (or location plan) must show the lot boundaries, location of the existing home and driveway, utilities, easements, streams, buffers, clearing and impervious square footage of the home for the local river system. A copy of the loan survey with the proposed building or structure drawn upon it is the best way to satisfy this plan requirement. Or, I found that the Geographic Information System (GIS) survey of the land can also be used (I will describe how to use later). The schematics and scale drawing must be reviewed by the Development Review Section of the Department of Planning and Development.
5. If the home is served by a septic tank, approval from the Environmental Health Department is required prior to permit issuance. This may require scheduling or additional fees.
6. Submit the drawing Location Plan to Stormwater Plan Review Section of the Department of Planning and Development. This may require scheduling or additional fee.
7. A building permit is required to be obtained for structures that are 32 square feet or greater in size. A building permit is required to be obtained regardless of size if the building or structure is proposed to contain an electrical, mechanical or plumbing system. The fee for the building permit is assessed at $6 for each $1000 of construction cost plus $25 for the Certificate of Completion. The minimum permit fee is $30 plus $25 for the Certificate of Completion. The building permit is issued through the Building Permits Section of the Department of Planning and Development.
8. A possible inspection of the structure after it is built with the building inspector. This may cost per inspection and follow-on inspection.
9. Permission from Housing Organization Association (Luckily, I don't have a HOA).

How to Use the GIS

Luckily, my county has an electronic survey of all property with property lines and utilities. This made it immensely easier than locating the deed or loan survey and using the information depicted in that. Using the GIS was very similar to using google maps or mapquest.

1. Navigate to the website and make sure the browser can support pop-ups.
2. Input the home address
3. Zoom the image until it showed only the property lines
4. Use the utilities features to show which utilities that I wanted. In this case, water, gas, sewage, hard-surfaces, road surfaces, property addresses, property numbers, etc.
5. Take a screenshot. For my keyboard, it is pressing CTRL key and PRNTSCR key at the same time. Or, it can also be ALT key and PRNTSCR key at the same time.
6. Paste the screenshot into a drawing program. I used MS Paint. To paste, CTRL key and V key.
7. Edit the image, if necessary. I like deleting or cropping out computer screen lines. I copied the scale from the website into the drawing (not shown here). I drew where the greenhouse is supposed to be in a bright color that does not match the lines used by the GIS for the other utilities. Label all lines in a legend on the drawing. I have my image as a reference with many identifiers removed for my privacy.
8. Print the image on a single sheet of paper.

If your county doesn't have a survey available online, use google maps and take a screenshot of that. Then trace over the image so that it will be in scale while labeling all the utilities. Keep the scale from the map on the image.

I have not submitted the plan as of yet, but I have all the required documentation as I know it. I just have to submit it. I ran into a small change in priorities and decided to use the seed-starting growhouse as a greenhouse for fall 2015/winter 2016 season which I am using for my hydroponics and a couple of earthboxes (I will detail that in a later post). I still plan to have a larger greenhouse, but it will have to be at a later time.