Finally Underway

Well after 1 month of waiting the permit has arrived. The delay was due to the City deciding that they wanted a structural review of the plans - known as a Peer Review. This was a bit unexpected given that this is a residential project and then structural changes were minor at best.

What is a Peer Review you ask? Well the plans have to be reviewed by a Structural Engineer who is "certified" in the City of Chicago. Getting a Structural Engineer to do a full written review at the last minute is not so easy. So after about 1.5 weeks and $1000 later we get a stamped piece of paper saying that the drawings are sufficient. So Jim, the architect, went back down town to drop everything back off with the building department. We were given the impression that this would be sufficient and the permit would be issued...ahh the beauty of the City of Chicago. Well people have to justify their jobs so of course the Peer Review had to be reviewed by the City structural department. "Only a few days were told". Well after a week I began to lose my patience so I personally went down there to try and collect the plans.

After schmoozing with the Permit Reviewer for 45 minutes (that is not an exaggeration either) he decides to go and check on the status of plans. Can you guess...they were not approved. The structural reviewer decided that the Peer Review was not complete and required a letter stating the changes he wanted the architect to make. Note: there were no actual changes to the drawings the person only needed to justify their job.

The changes required going back to the Engineer and having him write a letter and then basically place his stamp all over everything. The City Structural reviewer may have just written CYA or better yet CMA (cover my ass) all over the thing.

So after three days we were able to get the drawings and peer review back to the City. Of course they had to review everything all over again. The Friday before Labor Day arrived and I could not take it any more. I went and camped myself in front of the Permit Reviewer. He eventually acknowledged me and said that in fact the permit was ready. I paid as fast as I could and then proceeded to RUN out of the building department lest they think of some other reason to delay the process.

I called all the contractors - think of trying to mobilize all the armed forces at once. The Tuesday after Labor Day we officially got under way.