City of Fishers, Indiana - Community Development Department

City of Fishers, Indiana

city

1 Municipal Drive, Fishers, IN 46038

READ THIS ONE FIRST, BECAUSE WHAT IS MISSING FROM THIS RECORD IS AS IMPORTANT AS WHAT IS IN IT. The City of Fishers runs its own building and planning office. Hamilton County publishes a map dividing the county into nine planning jurisdictions and a sheet for each one naming the office that serves it, and the sheet for the City of Fishers area names the Fishers Community Development Department, 1 Municipal Drive, Fishers, Indiana 46038, telephone (317) 595-3155. The City's own development ordinance names a Building Commissioner among the officials designated to enforce it. So the County Plan Commission is not your permitting authority on a Fishers job, and neither is the State. Work out which of the nine jurisdictions an address falls in before filing anything: the areas are drawn on township lines rather than corporate limits, so being outside a town is not the same as being in the County's area, and the City's own ordinance says the development ordinance "applies to all land, buildings, structures and uses located within corporate limits and the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the City of Fishers, Indiana, and any land within Townships that have entered joinder agreements with the City for the purposes of planning and zoning", naming Delaware and Fall Creek Townships elsewhere in the same section. WHAT COULD NOT BE ESTABLISHED, AND WHY. The City of Fishers website answers automated requests with a bot-challenge page rather than its content, on every path tried and by every method tried, and the vendor site that publishes the Fishers Municipal Code does the same. The Municipal Code chapters that would carry the building code, the permit requirement and any contractor registration scheme were therefore not read. This record consequently says nothing about whether Fishers requires a permit for a re-roof, what threshold or exemption might apply, whether it stages a mid-roof or deck inspection, or whether it registers roofing contractors - not because those things were found to be absent, but because the instruments that would answer them could not be opened. Do not read the absence of those fields as a negative. Telephone the Community Development Department, or open the City's site in an ordinary browser, before quoting a Fishers job. Note in particular that Indiana licenses no contractor trade at state level - the Professional Licensing Agency's published list of the professions it regulates covers 39 occupations including plumbing and names no roofing, general contractor or home improvement credential - so in Indiana any registration requirement is purely local, and being registered nowhere else in the state proves nothing about Fishers. WHAT THE CITY'S DEVELOPMENT ORDINANCE DOES SAY ABOUT ROOFS, WHICH IS MORE THAN MOST. The Fishers Unified Development Ordinance was adopted July 19, 2018, took effect July 20, 2018 by Ordinance No. 071618F and carries amendments through ordinances dated April 20, 2026. It was read in full. Three provisions in it bear on roofing work. First, its defined term "Structural Alteration" means "Any change in the supporting members of a building or structure such as bearing walls, partitions, columns, beams or girders, or any change in the footprint or increase in the size of living space. Also, substantial roofing and siding work when repairs are made to the structure beneath." So in this city's own vocabulary a re-roof that includes repairs to the structure beneath is a structural alteration. Second, Section 6.1.2 provides that "All structures, buildings, land uses, land use changes, structural alterations, structural relocations, demolitions, structural additions, and structural enlargements that are constructed, created, established, or occur after the effective date of the UDO (except as may otherwise be provided within the UDO) are subject to all development standards and regulations for the applicable Zoning District within the City or the City's extraterritorial jurisdiction." Third, the residential design standards in Section 6.3.4 include Roof Standards that are marked required for both single-family and multi-family development, among them that "Quality roof materials such as tile, slate, cedar shake with fire protection, 30-year asphalt shingles, dimensional asphalt or fiberglass shingles, high-quality standing seem metal roofing, or high-quality metal shingle roofing shall be used on all structures. All metal roofing shall be low-gloss and a base color", and that "Sloped roofs shall have a significant pitch, primary roof planes to be no less than 5/12." The word "seem" in that passage is the ordinance's own typo for seam and is quoted as printed. Whether the City applies those design standards to a like-for-like re-roof of an existing house, or only when a job is large enough to be reviewed as a structural alteration, is an administrative question for the Community Development Department and is not something this record decides. What a roofer should take from it is concrete: a 30-year or dimensional asphalt shingle is inside the City's stated material list, a builder-grade three-tab may not be, and a shiny or bright-coloured metal roof is outside it. One more definition worth knowing, and worth not over-reading: the same ordinance provides that "Development" does not include activities such as the maintenance of existing structures and facilities such as painting, reroofing; resurfacing roads; or gardening, plowing, and similar agricultural practices that do not involve filling, grading, excavation, or the construction of permanent structures. That is a definition inside the development ordinance, so it keeps a plain re-roof out of the City's development-approval track. It is not a building permit exemption and must not be quoted as one.

STATE-SET, NOT CITY-SET, AND THERE IS NO FISHERS EDITION YEAR TO LOOK UP. One and two family dwellings in Fishers are built to the 2020 Indiana Residential Code, 675 IAC 14-4.4, which incorporates by reference "that certain document being titled the 2018 International Residential Code for One and Two Family Dwellings, first printing August 2017, published by the International Code Council ... save and except those revisions made in this rule", and which "shall be known as the 2020 Indiana Residential Code" (675 IAC 14-4.4-1). The rule was filed November 26, 2019 and formally readopted November 18, 2025, and it is the newest rule in Article 14 of Title 675; there is no later Indiana residential rule and no 2024 International Residential Code adoption in either the 2026 or the 2027 edition of the Indiana Administrative Code. No Indiana city may put itself on a different residential code: IC 22-13-2-3(a)(2) gives the state commission's rules precedence over any local ordinance covering the same subject matter, and (c) provides that "A city, town, or county may not adopt an ordinance that conflicts with or includes more stringent or detailed requirements than the commission's rules." One Indiana-specific point worth knowing if you ever do read a local ordinance that cites the code: under IC 22-13-2-3(b) a local reference to the Indiana Administrative Code "shall be construed to include all amendments as of the date that the reference is written and any later amendments to that provision, unless accompanied by a reference to a specific edition or supplement", so an Indiana ordinance citing 675 IAC 14-4.4 tracks the current rule rather than freezing at its adoption date. Whether the City of Fishers has its own building-code ordinance, and what it says, could not be established, because the City's website refuses automated requests. That does not change the edition, which the state sets.

Required — REQUIRED AT EAVES AND RAKES, STATEWIDE, AND FISHERS HAS NO SAY IN IT EITHER WAY. The Indiana State Building Commissioner reproduces the governing provision in full, on Indiana Department of Homeland Security letterhead, in the guidance document "ICE/WATER SHIELD & METAL DRIP EDGE IN CLASS 2 CONSTRUCTION with ASPHALT SHINGLES", signed by Craig E. Burgess, Indiana State Building Commissioner, February 25, 2020. It reads: "R905.2.8.5 Drip edge. A drip edge shall be provided at eaves and rake edges of shingle roofs. Adjacent segments of drip edge shall be overlapped not less than 2 inches (51 mm). Drip edges shall extend not less than 1/4 inch (6.4 mm) below the roof sheathing and extend up back onto the roof deck not less than 2 inches (51 mm). Drip edges shall be mechanically fastened to the rood deck at not more than 12 inches (305 mm) o.c. with fasteners as specified in Section R905.2.5 Underlayment shall be installed over the drip edge along eaves and under the drip edge along rake edges." Two oddities in that passage are the published document's own typography and not a transcription slip at this end. "rood deck" is a typo in the State's document for the roof deck, and the document runs the last two sentences together with no full stop after "Section R905.2.5". The same document states the reach of the code in terms: "The 2020 Indiana Residential Code is in full force and effect statewide. Regardless of any established local enforcement policies or practices to the contrary, or whether a local building authority even exists in any particular jurisdiction or location in the state, the 2020 Indiana Residential Code governs all Class 2 residential construction, and its requirements, by law, must be followed. Local units of government are statutorily mandated to require compliance with the code." A city cannot go the other way either, because IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars a city, town or county from an ordinance more stringent or more detailed than the state rules. So the drip edge is required on a Fishers shingle roof whatever the City's own paperwork does or does not say about it. About drip edge

Not required — NOT AUTOMATICALLY REQUIRED IN FISHERS, BECAUSE IN INDIANA THIS IS A COUNTY BY COUNTY ANSWER AND HAMILTON COUNTY IS ONE OF THE COUNTIES THAT IS NOT ON THE LIST. Indiana deletes the model climatic table and substitutes its own: 675 IAC 14-4.4-5 directs "Delete TABLE R301.2(1) and the corresponding footnotes and substitute to read as follows", and the substituted table then runs one row per county for all 92. One of its columns is headed "Ice Shield Underlayment Required". Fishers is in Hamilton County, which is row 29, and the entry in that column on the Hamilton County row is No. Only 27 of the 92 counties carry Yes there, and they are the northern tier, so a habit brought down from a Fort Wayne or a Lake County job is wrong here - and so is any assumption that Indiana has one statewide answer. An ice barrier can still be mandatory on a particular Fishers roof by a second and completely independent route, and the Indiana State Building Commissioner spells that route out on Department of Homeland Security letterhead. Because Sections R903.1, R904.1 and R905.1 require roofing materials to be installed in accordance with the manufacturer's installation instructions, "there are specific counties in which it is always required (per Table R301.2(1)), and specific counties in which it is required only when the roofing manufacturer's written installation instructions require it (per Sections R903.1, R904.1 and R905.1)." Hamilton County is in that second group. So on a Fishers job the question is not answered by the table alone: read the printed installation instructions for the shingle you are actually installing, because if they call for an ice barrier the code makes those instructions binding. What the barrier must be made of and how far up the slope it must run comes from the adopted 2018 International Residential Code itself, which Indiana does not modify on that point. About ice & water barrier

Not required — NO IMPACT-RESISTANCE MANDATE REACHES A FISHERS ROOF, AND THE CITY HAS NO POWER TO CREATE ONE. The 2020 Indiana Residential Code, 675 IAC 14-4.4, was read in full - all 245 sections - and contains no occurrence of UL 2218, Class 4, Class IV or FM 4473, the four designations that answer this question. Its only roof-assemblies amendments are word deletions: 675 IAC 14-4.4-84 deletes the last sentence of Section R902.4 on rooftop-mounted photovoltaic panel systems, 14-4.4-85 deletes "approved" from Section R905.2.6 Attachment, 14-4.4-86 deletes "approved" from Section R905.2.8 Flashing, and 14-4.4-87 deletes "printed" from Section R905.2.8.4 Other flashing. None of the four is about impact. The City of Fishers Unified Development Ordinance was also read in full and contains none of the four designations and no reference to hail; every one of its many uses of the word "impact" is a land-use or stormwater usage, such as low impact development, impact fees and the Commercial Low Impact overlay district, and not one is a roof rating. On top of that, IC 22-13-2-3(a)(2) gives the state commission's rules precedence over any local ordinance covering the same subject matter and (c) provides that "A city, town, or county may not adopt an ordinance that conflicts with or includes more stringent or detailed requirements than the commission's rules", so an Indiana city cannot impose a roof-covering standard the state has not set. An insurance discount for a Class 4 shingle is a matter between the homeowner and their carrier and is not a code requirement in Fishers or anywhere else in Indiana; never quote it as one. One piece of Indiana vocabulary that trips people up: "Class 2" in Indiana building law is a STRUCTURE class under IC 22-12-1-5, meaning a one or two family dwelling, and has nothing to do with a hail or fire rating - the State's own roofing guidance document is titled for Class 2 construction and is about ordinary houses.

115 mph. Indiana deletes the model International Residential Code Table R301.2(1) outright and substitutes its own county-by-county table at 675 IAC 14-4.4-5, which opens "Delete TABLE R301.2(1) and the corresponding footnotes and substitute to read as follows". Fishers sits in Hamilton County, which is row 29 of that table, and the row reads across as: Wind Speed 115 MPH; Seismic Design Category A; Ground Snow 20 PSF; Foundation 30 inches; Winter Design Temp 2 degrees; Decay Slight to Moderate; Termite Moderate to Heavy; Weathering Severe; Ice Shield Underlayment Required No; Air Freezing Index 1500 or less; Mean Annual Temp 51.5 degrees. All 92 Indiana counties carry the same 115 mph figure, so wind speed is not a local variable anywhere in the state and there is nothing in Fishers to look up. Exposure category is not a state or local lever either. It is a site-by-site determination under Section R301.2.1.4, and footnote a to the Indiana table says so in terms: "Wind exposure shall be determined on a site-specific basis in accordance with SECTION R301.2.1.4." Indiana does substitute the fourth sentence of that section, at 675 IAC 14-4.4-4, to provide that on a subdivision or master-planned site the exposure category for an individual structure is based on the conditions that will exist once all adjacent structures on the site have been constructed, where that construction is expected to begin within 2 years, which matters on a lot in a subdivision still being finished.

NO INDIANA AMENDMENT AND NO FISHERS AMENDMENT FOUND, SO THE BASE CODE GOVERNS UNMODIFIED - BUT READ IT OUT OF THE ADOPTED EDITION RATHER THAN FROM MEMORY. Roofing in Fishers runs on the 2020 Indiana Residential Code, 675 IAC 14-4.4, which incorporates the 2018 International Residential Code. That rule was read in full, all 245 sections. The International Residential Code reroofing section, R908, does not appear in it at any point, so Indiana leaves reroofing and recovering an existing roof exactly as the base code writes them, and there is no Indiana layer count to quote. It is worth knowing that Indiana does amend four sections of the roof-assemblies chapter, because the state is sometimes described as leaving Chapter 9 untouched and that is not accurate: the four are Section R902.4 on rooftop-mounted photovoltaic panel systems and Sections R905.2.6, R905.2.8 and R905.2.8.4 on asphalt-shingle attachment and flashing, and every one of them is the deletion of a word or a sentence rather than a new rule. None touches layer counts, overlays or recovering. An older Indiana rule, 675 IAC 14-4.2, did once amend Section R907.3 on recovering versus replacement, but that section stands repealed and is not the law today. Nor could Fishers add a layer rule of its own: IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars a city, town or county from an ordinance that conflicts with or includes more stringent or more detailed requirements than the state rules. The City of Fishers Unified Development Ordinance was read in full and contains no roof covering or layer provision. One limit on this answer, stated plainly because it matters: the City of Fishers building and permit chapters of the Municipal Code could not be opened, because both the City website and the vendor site that publishes the Municipal Code refuse automated requests. So the answer here rests on the state code, the state ceiling and the City development ordinance, and not on the City building chapter. Read the recover and reroof rule out of the adopted 2018 edition rather than carrying an overlay allowance across from another state, and confirm with the Community Development Department before quoting an overlay on a Fishers roof.

7% statewide, with nothing added in Fishers or Hamilton County. Indiana levies a single state sales tax rate and no county or municipal sales tax sits on top of it. The Department of Revenue says so on the very page that enumerates the taxes Indiana does levy at county level: "The tax types displayed include: County Innkeeper's Tax (CIT) Food and Beverage Tax (FAB) Local Income Tax (LIT) ... The sales tax for the entire State of Indiana is 7%." Those three county taxes are an income tax, a lodging tax and a restaurant tax, and none of them reaches roofing materials, so there is no local percentage to add to a Fishers invoice. Where the 7% falls depends on the shape of the contract rather than on the trade. The Department's Sales Tax Information Bulletin #60, publication date March 2024, names roofing in its own list of examples of contractors, and turns on one definition: a "Time and Material Contract" is "a contract in which the cost of construction material and the cost of labor or other charges are stated separately." A roofer working under a time and material contract "is a retail merchant that is selling the construction material that it incorporates into real property, and must be registered with the department and collect sales tax on the material portion of their contracts", and may buy that material exempt under the sale for resale exemption. A roofer working under any other form of contract, a lump sum contract being the Department's own example, is not acting as a retail merchant: they "must pay sales or use tax on their construction material" and "do not collect sales tax from their customers" on the contract to convert it into real property. One line worth reading twice on a time and material job: "NOTE: Installation charges separately stated on an invoice are not included in gross retail income. Labor incurred as part of on-site installation may be exempt." Which form your own contracts take, and how to invoice them, is a question for your accountant rather than for this record; the bulletin itself is guidance and says it is not binding on the department or the taxpayer.