On high rises near the airport, I always sent our drawings 48” taller to the FAA for the inevitable railing or exhaust vent that ends up happening. People freak out about it, but I already have it solved in my back pocket. One contractor said at a meeting, “$%&@, why don’t we do that on all projects?”

I got a 6” wide space between an elevator door and a fire door passed as a “firefighter staging area.” I simply explained to the fire chief that he had no place to stage in older buildings around town, and modern buildings are already constructed much safer. I also explained they could stage on the first floor at any exterior door or within the fire corridor, and there was really no need for the extra staging space as long as there were fire and smoke barriers. The chief agreed and they changed the interpretation for the whole city because I took the time to understand and reframe the actual problem he was trying to solve.

Our client did a little remodel to her cute little AirBnB rental behind her house. She replaced the cabinets, fixtures, flooring, and insulated the walls and ceiling. She got a violation for not having a permit to convert an accessory structure to a dwelling unit. We were able to find records from 40 years ago that showed that this old shed actually already had a permit to be converted to a "studio". It turned out that none of the remodeling required a permit since casework, counters, finishes, and insulation are exempt from permit requirements, and all of the plumbing and electrical fixtures were simply replaced in their same location. The stove was not allowed since that would cause the "studio" to be considered a "dwelling", so the client needed to unplug the electric stove. The only remaining item that required an actual update was one of the outlets that got swapped out actually needed to be a GFCI outlet. The whole violation was closed out once this outlet was addressed.