City of Conway, Arkansas - Building Permits & Inspections Department

City of Conway, Arkansas

city

1111 Main St, Conway, AR 72032

Required

Required

The Building Permits & Inspections Department sits at 1111 Main St, Conway, AR 72032; phone (501) 450-6107, email [email protected]. The City's own guidance states individual permits are required for electrical, plumbing, gas, and mechanical work in addition to the building permit, and impact fees apply to all new one- and two-family dwellings. Applications may be submitted online through the City's Civic Access Portal (Tyler EnerGov) at https://conwayar-energovweb.tylerhost.net/apps/SelfService#/home, which the City states are "given priority in processing," or in person between 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Per the City's guidance: "Trade permit applications may take 1-2 business days to process. Residential permit review may take up to 3-5 business days. Commercial permit review may take 2-3 weeks." Commencing work before permit issuance doubles the applicable permit fee (Sec. 11.16.06). Building permit fees are calculated based on total under-roof square footage regardless of whether the space is heated/cooled, with stated minimums per category (New Construction, Addition, Remodeling, Accessory).

Conway Municipal Code Sec. 11.16.01 (Adoption of.) states, verbatim: "There is hereby adopted by the City of Conway, Arkansas, pursuant to A.C.A. § 14-55-207(a), for the purpose of establishing rules and regulations for the construction, alteration, removal, demolition, equipment, use and occupancy, location and maintenance of buildings and structures, including permits and penalties, that certain building code known as the International Arkansas Fire Prevention Code Volumes II and III, 2007 edition thereof, as well as subsequent editions as adopted by the State of Arkansas, of which not less than three (3) copies of each of the codes... have been and are on file in the office of the Clerk/Treasurer of the City... and from the date on which this chapter shall take effect, the provisions thereof shall be controlling in the construction of all buildings and other structures within the corporate limits of the City, except as regulated by other ordinances of this Code." (Amended by Ord. No. O-24-65, § 1, 9-24-2024, the current codified version.) This is a rolling reference clause, not a fixed-year adoption: it tracks whatever edition the State of Arkansas currently has in force. Arkansas's own Fire Prevention Code is itself a statewide floor, not a ceiling: AFPC [A] 101.2.2 (Locally adopted codes) provides that "Each district, county, municipality, or other political subdivision of this state shall only adopt and enforce the provisions of the Arkansas Fire Prevention Code, 2021 Edition[; t]he AFPC 2021 Edition shall be the only foundation document available for modification by local jurisdictions should they choose to adopt more stringent provisions." The City's own current-codes notice to the public (a Building Permits & Inspections Department PDF, filename dated Sept. 2024 - consistent with the O-24-65 amendment date) confirms which edition Sec. 11.16.01's rolling clause resolves to today, listing: "2021 Arkansas Fire Prevention Code / 2021 International Building Code / 2021 International Mechanical Code / 2020 National Electrical Code / 2018 Arkansas Plumbing Code / 2018 Arkansas Gas Code / 2017 ANSI / 2014 Arkansas Energy Code." Chapter 11.16 (all four of its sections - 11.16.01 Adoption, 11.16.05 fire-district limits, 11.16.06 fee-schedule amendments, 11.16.07 site drainage) and Chapter 11.32 (City Building Department, both sections) were read in full and contain no city-specific amendment to the IRC's roofing chapters (8 or 9); the only local amendments found anywhere in Title 11 are the permit fee schedule (11.16.06), the historic fire-district boundary description (11.16.05), and the site-drainage review carve-outs (11.16.07) - none roofing-specific.

Not required — Checked at both layers Conway residential roofing actually runs through. STATE LAYER: the 2021 Arkansas Fire Prevention Code Rules Changes document's Volume III (Residential) chapter disposition list prints, verbatim: "Chapter 8, Roof-Ceiling Construction—No Changes" and "Chapter 9, Roof Assemblies—No Changes" - Arkansas amends nothing in the IRC's roofing chapters, and the document was grepped in full for "UL 2218" and "Class 4" with zero matches anywhere. CITY LAYER: Conway Municipal Code Chapter 11.16 (Building Code, all four sections: 11.16.01 Adoption, 11.16.05 fire-district limits, 11.16.06 fee-schedule amendments, 11.16.07 site drainage) and Chapter 11.32 (City Building Department, both sections: 11.32.01 Creation of the department, 11.32.02 Deputies) were read in full - the complete local building-code adoption and administration text - and grepped for "UL 2218" and "Class 4" with zero matches; the only local amendment content is the permit fee schedule, not an IRC section-level amendment. Neither layer imposes an impact-resistance requirement on Conway residential roofing as adopted.

No roofing-specific dollar threshold is printed anywhere in Conway's adopted-code chapter. The City's own Residential Building Permit Guidelines page states, verbatim: "Building permits are required for new constructions, remodels, additions, and accessory buildings" - with no exemption carved out for roofing or reroofing the way Little Rock names "residential roofs" as an excluded category (Little Rock Sec. 8-31(c)(1)a.). Conway Municipal Code Sec. 11.16.06 (Amendments to the code hereby adopted, the fee schedule) prices work by category rather than by a pass/fail dollar threshold. As codified, it reads "Remodeling $1.00 per $1,000.00 of total cost of construction Minimum of $45.00" - that is the category an ordinary reroof falls under - together with "Note: Commencing work before permit issuance shall result in doubling of the appropriate permit fee." Those codified figures have since been superseded: the City has adopted an ordinance titled "AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 11.16 SECTION 11.16.06 OF THE CONWAY MUNICIPAL CODE; AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES", passed February 10, 2026 and providing at its Section 2 that the ordinance takes full effect as of March 16, 2026. That ordinance restates the fee schedule with the remodeling line as "Remodeling $1 per $1,000 of the total cost of construction Minimum of $50" and raises several other category minimums from $45 to $50. The copy the City posts carries the heading "Ordinance No. O-26-" with no number filled in, so it is cited here by its title and passage date rather than by number. The amendment changes only fee amounts - it adds and removes no roofing-specific line, and neither version sets a dollar threshold below which a roofing permit is unnecessary. No square-footage or percentage-of-roof-area minor-repair exemption was found anywhere in Chapter 11.16 (read in full, all four sections).

9.125% combined (state 6.5% + City of Conway 2.125%, effective 04/01/26 + Faulkner County 0.500%), per the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration's July-September 2026 quarterly "List of Cities and Counties with Local Sales and Use Tax" table, which prints Conway's row as "Conway (city) 23-01 04/01/26 2.125% Faulkner 0.500% 2.625%" (2.625% combined local, plus the 6.5% state rate). Note the city rate changed effective April 1, 2026, within the current quarterly table.