New Apartment Building - Remove top two floors

[Rocksnsalt]

So much for the strategy of “just build it and battle them if they want you to remove it” which used to be fairly common in hoa communities.
#FAFO

 

[Larry M]

I’m surprised it got as far as it did. It’s in an old neighborhood where typically residents don’t want change and are following the progress from day one. How did it get this far? Mordita?

 

[Solera2012]

The city will not give an occupancy permit to any portion of the building until the demo has been completed.
So no rent?

That's the best way to bleed this prick wise guy dry. hit him in the pocket book for being an arrogant prick adding two xtra stories.

Hey green boy, you see this, STORIES, not levels.

 

[Solera2012]

I’m surprised it got as far as it did. It’s in an old neighborhood where typically residents don’t want change and are following the progress from day one. How did it get this far? Mordita?

Easy. the building inspector shows up, and does his thing. structure, proper materials, etc. Should he count the STOIRIES, to make sure this prick didn't add a couple, no. Any reasonable person would assume you dont add a couple stories to the building.

Who adds a couple stories, other than a con artist.

 

[Rocksnsalt]

No cakes were damaged in the building of that building…

 

[Larry M]

Easy. the building inspector shows up, and does his thing. structure, proper materials, etc. Should he count the STOIRIES, to make sure this prick didn't add a couple, no. Any reasonable person would assume you do add a couple stories to the building.

Who adds a couple stories, other than a con artist.

I’m not talking building inspectors. I live near a water way. If a dock or a dredge comes in, the locals police the permits and the news loves it. How did an extra 2 stories get added without public outcry. There has to be more to this story.

 

[John E]

There are so many checks and balances in my area. There is a list of engineers that need to submit affidavits prior, during, and at the completion of the construction. I've never met one that would compromise their professional license. Here the building inspector should have shut it down right away.

You know what they say, though. "Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach. Those that can't teach, become inspectors"

 

[3Play]

We were contracted to do electrical work on a re-hab facility, the contractor was remodeling the whole place while it was still in operation. One of the changes was to double the size of the roll in shower stalls on the lower floor so he decided to just start removing every other wall dividing the stalls to make them twice as wide, but no engineering was done, or even a rudimentary examination. After several of the dividing walls were removed the upper floor started to drop several inches, the dividing walls were apparently load bearing.

A friend who was an excellent framer built a laundry room at some 1920's cottages in S. Phx. that were inhabited by illegals.
He was afraid of electrical and asked me to do it. it had a drop from a pole to a service box on a 4 x 4 pole about 10ft. from the new bldg.
I gasped when I saw the service box was an indoor box with knockouts removed and NO main breaker.
I wired the bldg. than worked backwards and wired to the box.
I kept asking him to get an outdoor box, it was just a sub panel for about 4 breakers....

3 weeks later, a gas leak happened and ALL the inspectors showed up with the fire dept. and police.
He called me in to talk to the inspector.
This rocket scientist had an issue with the zinc plated screws on the ground clamp and wanted me to put knock out plugs in the holes.
I kept hinting at: Shouldn't this be an outdoor box?
Don't you think it should have a main shut off?

Deer in the headlights, I plugged the holes and got bronze screws for the clamps....
A lot of inspectors are clueless and have never been in the trades....

 

[Solera2012]

I’m not talking building inspectors. I live near a water way. If a dock or a dredge comes in, the locals police the permits and the news loves it. How did an extra 2 stories get added without public outcry. There has to be more to this story.

I was talking about the building inspectors. They are involved in the process. What inspector would think to count the stories against the prints submitted on file back at the city building dept. NONE. Why?. Because you wouldn't think in the normal course of business, that the builder would have that big of balls, to add two extra stories.

It really sounds that simple.

 

[John E]

I was talking about the building inspectors. They are involved in the process. What inspector would think to count the stories against the prints submitted on file back at the city building dept. NONE. Why?. Because you wouldn't think in the normal course of business, that the builder would have that big of balls, to add two extra stories.

It really sounds that simple.

You've got to be kidding. What building inspector would not compare the building to the approved plans?? None that I know. And I know a lot of them.

 

[45Kevin]

I’m surprised it got as far as it did. It’s in an old neighborhood where typically residents don’t want change and are following the progress from day one. How did it get this far? Mordita?

Not so much.

This a typical 300 plus year old east coast city.
The old city 120, 150 year old houses are getting bought by developers for commercial or high density residential.
It's a central area close to everything so it makes sense.
Wyse road has been very commercial and high density res in that area for many decades.
I did my drivers test at the DMV office in the shopping center across the road from this building more than 50 years ago.

According to the article the city was aware of the extra floors as soon as it got higher than the permit allowed. They documented what was going on and at some point decided to require them to remove them. Not completely obvious form the article.

There are so many checks and balances in my area. There is a list of engineers that need to submit affidavits prior, during, and at the completion of the construction. I've never met one that would compromise their professional license. Here the building inspector should have shut it down right away.

You know what they say, though. "Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach. Those that can't teach, become inspectors"

It is definitely an unusual situation.
I'm sure the original, and the re-submitted drawing were properly engineered.

Engineers do go to site for periodic inspections, but much less often than they used to.
They get a copy of site meeting minutes and look for comments regarding their discipline.
I would have to expect that additional floor made it into the meetings' minutes.
Change orders, additional pricing and all that.

But all members of the construction team would have had access to the developer's intention to move forward with the additional floors.
Architects, engineers, designers, contractors all had a job open on a valid building permit number so probably would not too hard push back being asked to add floors.

The structural engineer, the only one that would actually need to count the floors may have gone to site after they got to the first one or two residential floors poured and after that probably just looked at concrete reports from the concrete tester.

I don't think there is a lot of pertinent missing info but we don't have the full story for sure.

 

[45Kevin]

One of my buddies from down there just got back to me.

He said it was definitely a deliberate case of "ask for forgiveness later" that back fired.

 

[Larry M]

If I was an investor, I’d be more than pissed.

 

[Rocksnsalt]

One of my buddies from down there just got back to me.

He said it was definitely a deliberate case of "ask for forgiveness later" that back fired.

I want to know more about the builder and or owner, like what’s their background and history.
Most might try to get away with adding a few minor dimension increases, a room, or a foot to the height… adding two stories is a whole new level.

(yes actually two)

 

[Solera2012]

You've got to be kidding. What building inspector would not compare the building to the approved plans?? None that I know. And I know a lot of them.

Youre confused. Re-read WHAT I SAID. the building inspector is a field guy. He doesn't walk around with plans in hand, but rather applies his knowledge of building systems to the code, making sure the builder is in compliance.

If you think he would think the scumbag builder added a couple floors to the building, in violation of the agreed to plans, and he should dawn on him that oh wow, I better count the stories to make sure he didn't add a couple, you're sadly mistaken. I'm assuming nobody is on the take of course.

I'll put it this way, so you can grasp the concept here; how many builders do you know of, that would just add two stories, for _hits and giggles? it was DELIBERATE.

A. SLIM TO NONE. So, you (the building inspector) wouldnt think of counting stories, who would make that mistake...lol. it really is that simple.

 

[45Kevin]

Here's another story by a more local media.

HRM is Halifax Regional Municipality. About 25 years ago the province amalgamated the cities of Halifax, Dartmouth and the bedroom communites about 30 miles in each direction.
Total population is probably 600K.

Rip them off: Halifax council orders developer to remove two illegal floors in Dartmouth

It will cost the developer over $1 million to take out the already-built two floors of housing

www.saltwire.com

Here is the developer.

Zagros Nova Home Development Ltd. - Bing

Intelligent search from Bing makes it easier to quickly find what you’re looking for and rewards you.

www.bing.com

I'll spend some time reading about them.

 

[Solera2012]

One of my buddies from down there just got back to me.

He said it was definitely a deliberate case of "ask for forgiveness later" that back fired.

He's banking on not having to tear it down to proper height. I bet he gets away with it, paying a fine, which goes into city coffers.

 

[45Kevin]

Youre confused. Re-read WHAT I SAID. the building inspector is a field guy. He doesn't walk around with plans in hand, but rather applies his knowledge of building systems to the code, making sure the builder is in compliance.

If you think he would think the scumbag builder added a couple floors to the building, in violation of the agreed to plans, and he should dawn on him that oh wow, I better count the stories to make sure he didn't add a couple, you're sadly mistaken. I'm assuming nobody is on the take of course.

I'll put it this way, so you can grasp the concept here; how many builders do you know of, that would just add two stories, for _hits and giggles? it was DELIBERATE.

A. SLIM TO NONE. So, you (the building inspector) wouldnt think of counting stories, who would make that mistake...lol. it really is that simple.

Not sure if you caught it in an earlier post, but the city became aware of the extra floors as soon as the 10th floor was poured.
They just didn't do anything about it at that time. The article isn't clear why, only that they documented it.

Not sure where you live and how the inspectors work, but in my experience the inspectors most certainly carry a full set of drawing and specs on their iPad or Surface tablets. They will refer to them when they see something they were not expecting.

I agree that counting floors is not the kind of thing you would normally think to do but it seems likes the neigbours were probably on it.
It seem the approval of this project was not popular among local residents and the builder was not very considerate of neighbours.

 

[Rocksnsalt]

Builder Zagros says it was a “musunderstanding”

riiiiight…
🤣

 

[45Kevin]

He's banking on not having to tear it down to proper height. I bet he gets away with it, paying a fine, which goes into city coffers.

The link to the new article I posted in post #36 goes into this a little deeper.
Any fines would go to the provincial government.

I fully expect, from what I have read so far, to see the demo proceed.