What is a Certificate of Occupancy? EDIT 11/21/19: The City of Philadelphia is now requiring all multifamily properties, even two-families, to obtain a Certificate of Occupancy. The Certificate of Occupancy may be the most elusive of all permits. So we wanted to give everyone the low down on what this document is, how to obtain it, and how to know if you even need it. A Certificate of...
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Earlier this week our expeditors Ashley and Liz hosted an Instagram Live event where they explained the different online resources we use here at Philadelphia Zoning. MVR (Most Valuable Resource) Our favorite and most valued online resource is the City Atlas. The Atlas has five important functions we think you should know about. The first and foremost value of this sacred tool is that it allows...
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An additional information request is sent by Licenses and Inspections whenever one of their plans examiners wants to know more about your project. Getting this letter is not an indication of failure, it is actually considered a standard response as requirements for permits can be as unpredictable as the weather. However, in the off chance you do not receive a request for additional information, you deserve...
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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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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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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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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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One of the most sensible and also counter-intuitive parts of the zoning process in Philly is the community review. Any time you want to use your property for something that the zoning code doesn't allow, you must seek a variance from the City of Philadelphia (as we've discussed). When you seek a variance, a community organization in Philadelphia gets to review the proposal before the City...
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Wait, I have to get approval from what? Ah, prerequisite approvals! Who doesn't love that giddy sensation? You know the one: You walk up to the desk at Licenses and Inspections, submit your carefully prepared application, and are told in a dead monotone, "This needs approval from Streets before we'll look at it." There's no way around it: Prerequisite approvals are rough. In this story, you need...
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We here at Philadelphia Zoning like to think we have answers for you. We tell you we can saw through forests of red tape, and we mean it. But sometimes, we get a question that has about a hundred different answers. "How much does a permit cost?" is one of those questions. There are a few reasons why such a simple question has so many different answers. First,...
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