City of Fort Smith, Arkansas - Building Services

City of Fort Smith, Arkansas

city

623 Garrison Avenue, Room 405, Fort Smith, AR 72901

Required

Required

Fort Smith's Building Services department (479-784-2206) reviews permit applications and inspects work for compliance with the adopted Arkansas Fire Prevention Code, among the other state-adopted trade codes. For single-family and duplex projects, the Building Department (623 Garrison Avenue, Room 405) accepts applications through the online CityView Portal or in person; "repairs and minor alteration projects such as roofing, new windows, new siding, and some remodels will not require a site plan or construction plans," but applicants are directed to contact the department first to confirm what is needed for their specific project. The Building Safety FAQ states the permit obligation runs to the property owner regardless of whether the contractor or the homeowner is the one who actually files the application: "regardless if your contractor or the homeowner obtains the permit, the property owner is ultimately responsible for ensuring that all work on his/her property meet city adopted codes and standards."

Fort Smith adopts the Arkansas Fire Prevention Code (AFPC), 2021 Edition, in two separate municipal-code articles for two separate purposes. For one- and two-family dwellings, Fort Smith Municipal Code Sec. 6-2 (Chapter 6, Article I) adopts, verbatim, "that certain code known as the 2021 Edition of the International Residential Code Known as the 2021 Edition of the Arkansas Fire Prevention Code Volume III ... and the provisions thereof shall be controlled in the limits of the City of Fort Smith, Arkansas." Sec. 6-3 (Article I) is the complete, exhaustive list of every amendment Fort Smith makes to that residential code: (1) deletes Section 105.2 (the code's own "Work exempt from permit" list) in its entirety, (2) deletes Section 105.3.1.1, (3) adds a new Section R105.10 requiring every contractor to hold both a state license/registration and a city occupational license, (4) deletes Section 106.3.1, (5) adds a new Section 108.6 penalizing work commenced before permit issuance at 100 percent of the usual permit fee, and (6) deletes Chapters 11 and 24-43 and Appendixes AA through AX. None of these six amendments touches Table R301.2(1), the roof-covering classification provisions, or any wind/ice-barrier/drip-edge/layer-limit section. Separately, Fort Smith Municipal Code Sec. 6-26 (Chapter 6, Article II) adopts "the International Building Code being particularly the 2021 edition of the Arkansas Fire Prevention Code Volume II" to govern commercial and multi-family construction, with its own amendment list at Sec. 6-27; this commercial-code article is not the one that governs single-family or duplex roofing. Arkansas itself amends nothing in the IRC's roofing chapters (Chapter 8, Roof-Ceiling Construction, and Chapter 9, Roof Assemblies) or in Table R301.2(1) at the state level, and prints no statewide fill-in for wind design speed, ground snow load, or ice-barrier requirement in Volume III - each city must fill those in itself, and Fort Smith's own complete amendment list does not do so, nor was a Fort Smith-specific design-criteria publication found on the city's own site.

Not required — Fort Smith's published residential-construction inspection sequence lists Foundation, Concrete Slab, Plumbing/Mechanical/Electrical Rough, Framing, and Final as the required inspections. There is no separate, standalone mid-roof or roof-sheathing-only inspection step; the Framing inspection itself occurs only "after roof, framing, fire blocking, pipes, chimneys, and rough utilities are complete," folding roof completion into that single inspection rather than treating it as its own checkpoint.

Not required — No provision addressing impact resistance, UL 2218, or Class 4 roofing appears anywhere in Fort Smith's own adopted-code amendment text. Sec. 6-3 (Article I, the complete, exhaustive list of the six amendments Fort Smith makes to its adopted one- and two-family residential code) and Sec. 6-27 (Article II, the complete list of eight amendments to its adopted commercial code) were both read in full; neither touches roof-covering classification of any kind. Arkansas itself amends nothing in the IRC's roofing chapters (8 and 9) at the state level, so state silence combined with Fort Smith's own silence means impact-resistance is simply not addressed by any instrument governing Fort Smith - this is a city-level absence earned by reading the city's own text, not an inference from the state floor alone.

Fort Smith recognizes no dollar-value or scope exemption for roofing repair or replacement on one- and two-family dwellings; the Building Safety FAQ states directly, verbatim, in answer to "If I replace my windows or my roof, do I need a building permit?": "Yes, this would be considered a repair for maintenance of your building or home and would require a permit. Specific building and life safety requirements related to roofing and windows must be checked." This is reinforced structurally: Fort Smith Municipal Code Sec. 6-3(1) deletes the adopted residential code's own Section 105.2 ("Work exempt from permit") in its entirety, meaning Fort Smith carries no minor-work permit-exemption list at all for the residential code, unlike jurisdictions that exempt small reroofing jobs or a set number of covering layers. The city's single-family/duplex permit guidance does note that roofing, along with new windows and siding, is treated as a "repair and minor alteration project" that does not require a full site plan or construction-plan package, but applicants are still directed to contact the Building Department to determine the permit and inspection requirements for their specific project.

Fort Smith's combined sales and use tax rate is 9.500%: the Arkansas state rate of 6.500% (unchanged since July 1, 2013) plus Fort Smith's own city rate of 2.000% (effective 05/01/2001) plus Sebastian County's rate of 1.000%, per the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration's current (July-September 2026) quarterly "List of Cities and Counties with Local Sales and Use Tax," which prints the row "Fort Smith 65-01 05/01/01 2.000% Sebastian 1.000% 3.000%" (3.000% being the combined city+county local total, before adding the 6.500% state rate). Local rates are reviewed quarterly by the state and should be re-verified against that quarter's current table before reuse.