Building Permits

Do It Yourself   The City’s Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I)  has an online platform called Eclipse which allows users to do a number of things online. This tool is great for license renewals including trade license and housing rental licenses. Once you set-up an account you can apply for new licenses, renew old licenses, and schedule inspections for existing permit applications all without every stepping...

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By Right Development   Projects which are allowed by the zoning code are known as by-right developments. Every parcel and property in the city of Philadelphia falls into a distinct category of the zoning code which can be found by searching the address in the City Atlas. This tool allows users to see the zoning classification, relevant overlays, registered neighborhood associations, past appeals, and more. The value...

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soil-and-water

Previously in this blog, we’ve mentioned the City of Philadelphia’s requests for additional information.  Since we see a lot of these, we are going to create a catalogue of the requests as a reference guide.  We hope that this will help our clients, design partners, and contractors better understand what information is most commonly missing from an application.  (If you haven’t seen it before, it’s...

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Things You Should Know   When it comes to building something in the city of Philadelphia there are a few essential things you will need. Many of these essentials come from L&I, the Department of Licenses and Inspections. The key here is understanding what you will need, and how to get it. In addition to any Building or Zoning Permits you may need for your project, you may...

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add-info-zoning-permit

Previously in this blog, we’ve mentioned the City of Philadelphia’s requests for additional information.  Since we see a lot of these, we are going to create a catalogue of the requests as a reference guide.  We hope that this will help our clients, design partners, and contractors better understand what information is most commonly missing from an application.  (If you haven’t seen it before, it’s...

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Structural-Design

Previously in this blog, we’ve mentioned the City of Philadelphia’s requests for additional information.  Since we see a lot of these, we are going to create a catalogue of the requests as a reference guide.  We hope that this will help our clients, design partners, and contractors better understand what information is most commonly missing from an application.  (If you haven’t seen it before, it’s...

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permit-tracker

When we started out at Philly Zoning, we got a version the same question every week:  Where's my permit?  Once someone gets started on a permitting project, they want to know how far along the permit is, and how they can check its progress.   We give our clients weekly updates to answer that question, but we also think it might be helpful to provide an overview...

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Right-of-Way-Streets

Previously in this blog, we've mentioned the City of Philadelphia's requests for additional information.  Since we see a lot of these, we are going to create a catalogue of the requests as a reference guide.  We hope that this will help our clients, design partners, and contractors better understand what information is most commonly missing from an application.  (If you haven't seen it before, it's...

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I cannot tell you how many of our clients run into issues with their General Contractor (or whatever party is in charge of applying-for and obtaining things on behalf of their client). Oftentimes, tracking down a physical building permit is more difficult than Nicholas cage's voyage in all of the National Treasure movies combined.   I am not saying that general contractors are bad people. I am...

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Reference Guide

Happy holidays from Philadelphia Zoning!   We've had quite a year here, thanks to our clients, legal partners, and design partners.  To thank everyone, we're offering this present:  A handy reference guide for our most common permitting projects.  Enjoy!     General Zoning and Permitting Information   The source:  The Philadelphia Zoning Code The Philadelphia Code can be found here.  Title 14 (what those of us not in the legal profession would simply...

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