Temporary Occupancy Permits

[Chet]

Anyone care to share thier policies on granting "temporary" occupancies for commercial / industrial buildings?

We've been going round-and-round on it.

Before 1996, we were giving them out like candy and never followed up on. (pre-dates my tenure!)

1996-2000, we did not grant them at all.

2000 - present, we will grant them if they post a cash bond equal to double the value of incomplete items. Fees are higher for temporaries than they are for finals.

Anyone have any better hooks?

 

[Repo Man]

We issue them fairly often...probably more often that we should. Usually the only things that we allow to be incomplete are landscping installation, dumpster enclosures and other minor things.

We do put a deadline on them. For example, we issued one last week for a law office. We told them they had 30 days to put a gate on their dumpster enclosure and until June 1, 2003 to have their landscaping fully installed.

One of the problems that I have found with issuing temporary occupancy permits is that some people know that they are relativly easy to obtain, so they intentionally postpone some expensive items, such as landscaping, then after they are open and we won't issue a final occupancy permit, they say "well you can't close down my business just because I haven't installed landscaping."

 

[NHPlanner]

No temporaries here anymore. We had lots of problems with buildings sitting on temporary CO's....and even a few instances where a our building department issued building permits for projects that hadn't received final site plan approval!

I redid our regulations a year ago, we now have the following things:

1. as a required note on the plans:

"In accordance with Section 6.01 of the Londonderry Site Plan Regulations and RSA § 676:13, all improvements specified on these site plans shall be constructed, completed, inspected and approved by the Town of Londonderry prior to the issuance of a certificate of occupancy."

2. in our Assurances for Completion and Maintenance of Improvements section:

c. ON-SITE IMPROVEMENTS: All site plans shall be required to submit an erosion control and site restoration bond, in an amount and form determined by the Department of Public Works, prior to commencing construction on the site. Also, in accordance with NH RSA § 676:13, no certificate of occupancy shall be issued by the Building Department until all on-site improvements specified on the approved site-plan are completed and inspected in accordance with section 6.02.

d. In circumstances that prevent landscaping to be completed (due to weather conditions or other unique circumstance), the Building Department may issue a certificate of occupancy prior to the completion of landscaping improvements, if agreed upon by the Planning & Public Works Departments, when a bond (see forms available from the Public Works Department) and agreement to complete improvements are placed with the Town. The landscaping shall be completed within 6 months from the issuance of the certificate of occupancy, or the Town shall utilize the bond to contract out the work to complete the improvements as stipulated in the agreement to complete landscaping improvements. No other improvements shall be permitted to bond for their completion for purposes of receiving a certificate of occupancy.