Gooding County - Planning and Zoning and Building Department

Gooding County, Idaho

county

145 7th Avenue East, Gooding, ID 83330

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EVERYTHING RUNS THROUGH OPENGOV. The Gooding County Building Department page says the department "is now ELECTRONIC" and directs applicants to submit the permit application through the OpenGov platform; the Planning and Zoning department has moved the same way. Inspections are requested the same way: "For projects with a current building permit, please request inspections through the OpenGov app where you obtained your building permit. Notification of appointment times and correspondence will be in the OpenGov app under your building permit." The department is open Monday through Thursday, 7:30 in the morning to 5:30 in the afternoon. WHAT THE COUNTY WANTS BEFORE IT ISSUES. Plans may be prepared by the owner for residential projects; an architect or engineer is required only where the building is more than two stories, has walls greater than 12 feet, is of unusual design, or sits on topography needing engineering. One set of plans is required, drawn to a quarter inch to the foot or computer generated to not less than an eighth inch to the foot, all pages numbered, and "All plans need to be in pdf format for loading into OpenGov ... Please do not use photographs of plans!" A septic permit or inspection from South Central Public Health District is required for any building with a bathroom, and the applicable fire district reviews the plans through OpenGov before a permit issues. STARTING WITHOUT ONE IS EXPENSIVE. "The law requires that a building permit be issued prior to any work being done. To avoid a financial penalty, please allow ample time for us to process your application prior to the start of your project. If your project is started without a valid building permit it will be red tagged, and you face the potential of being issued a fine or having a lean placed on your property." ON SITE AND AT THE END. The permit and inspection card, plus a copy of the red-stamped approved-for-construction plans, must be kept on the construction site. Each inspection is scheduled by the permit holder in the OpenGov application, which stays active for inspections until the certificate of occupancy issues, and the County warns that a structure without a final inspection and certificate of occupancy "is not compliant and not legal for use." OTHER TRADES ARE THE STATE'S. The handout notes that "electrical, gas, mechanical, and plumbing are separate permits issued through the state. Inspections on work are done by state inspectors."

THE 2018 INTERNATIONAL RESIDENTIAL CODE, NAMED BY THE COUNTY IN ITS OWN RESIDENTIAL BUILDING HANDOUT. The Gooding County Planning and Zoning and Building Department publishes a handout headed "RESIDENTIAL" whose first paragraph reads: "THIS HANDOUT IS INTENDED TO BE A GENERAL GUIDE TO THE BUILDING PERMIT PROCESS. EVERY ATTEMPT HAS BEEN MADE TO INCLUDE THE BASIC REQUIREMENTS; HOWEVER, IN THE EVENT THE INFORMATION IS IN CONFLICT WITH ADOPTED CODES (IRC 2018), THE CODE PROVISIONS SHALL PREVAIL." The same handout cites the residential code directly when it exempts small decks that "do not serve the exit door required by IRC 2018 Section R311.4", which is the County applying the 2018 IRC as its operative document rather than merely naming it. STATE FRAMEWORK. Idaho's residential code is set by the Idaho Building Code Board rather than by a county. IDAPA 24.39.30.600.03 adopts the "International Residential Code, 2018 Edition ... Parts I, II, III, and IX of the 2018 Edition for one (1)- and two (2)-family dwellings", and Idaho Code 39-4116(2) requires a local government that issues building permits and enforces the code to adopt the Idaho residential code parts I through III and IX by ordinance while barring it from adopting a later IRC edition the Board has not adopted. Roofing sits in Part III and is included. Idaho Code 39-4116(6) adds that "Permits shall be governed by the laws in effect at the time the permit application is received." WHAT IS NOT ESTABLISHED. Gooding County does not publish the ordinance by which it adopted the 2018 editions. Its Planning and Zoning page publishes seven ordinances by name - the zoning, subdivision, floodplain, confined animal feeding, tower, telecommunications and energy project ordinances - and none of them is a building code. So the edition is stated first-hand by the County but the adopting instrument and any amendment list have not been read, and the roofing fields that would turn on those amendments are left unanswered in this record rather than filled from the model code.

GOODING COUNTY EXEMPTS REROOFING FROM PERMIT, AND IT SAYS SO UNDER A HEADING THAT MEANS EXACTLY THAT. The County's residential building handout carries the heading "WHEN IS A BUILDING PERMIT NOT REQUIRED?" and answers: "There are some types of work that are exempt, such as painting, papering, tiling, carpeting, cabinets, counter tops, and similar finish work. Swings and other playground equipment, sidewalks, driveways, fences not over 7 feet high, retaining walls that are not over 4 feet in height measured from the bottom of the footing to the top of the wall unless supporting a surcharge. One for one exchange on windows and doors, new roofing or re-roofing, or new siding or re-siding." THE EXEMPTION STOPS AT THE DECK, AND THIS IS THE SENTENCE THAT MATTERS ON A TEAR-OFF. The same paragraph continues: "No structural changes are allowed without a building permit (e.g. enlargement or reduction of openings, removal/replacement of sheathing or structural members requires a building permit)." Replacing roof sheathing is named in that example, so a job that starts as an exempt re-cover becomes permit work the moment decking is taken off and replaced. Price and sequence the job with that in mind, and stop and ring the department rather than carrying on if rot turns up under the felt. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RULE. The handout's preceding heading, "WHEN IS A BUILDING PERMIT REQUIRED?", states the general rule in broad terms: "A building permit is required any time a building or structure is erected, constructed, remodeled, enlarged, altered, repaired, moved, or converted. This includes work within a building that would be considered non-structural, such as moving or erecting non-bearing walls." Reroofing is carved out of that general rule by the exemption above rather than falling outside it, which is why the structural limit bites. THE COUNTY WARNS THAT ITS OWN LIST IS NOT COMPLETE. It closes: "The above is not an all-inclusive list. If you are unsure if a permit is needed, please call the building department at (208) 934-5958." There is no published dollar figure or square-footage threshold attached to the roofing exemption - it turns on whether the work is structural, not on what it costs. WHERE THIS EXEMPTION DOES AND DOES NOT REACH. It is the County's rule for unincorporated Gooding County. The cities in the county are separate jurisdictions and this record does not speak for them. Note also that an exemption from the permit is not an exemption from the code: the handout says the adopted code provisions prevail over the handout wherever the two conflict.

IN GOODING COUNTY THE DECK IS THE LINE BETWEEN EXEMPT WORK AND PERMIT WORK. The County's residential handout states, in the paragraph listing work that does not need a permit: "No structural changes are allowed without a building permit (e.g. enlargement or reduction of openings, removal/replacement of sheathing or structural members requires a building permit)." Reroofing itself is exempt in the same paragraph, so sheathing is the specific thing that pulls a roof job back under permit here. WHAT THE INSPECTION LOOKS AT WHEN A PERMIT IS PULLED. The County's published inspection sequence describes its sheathing inspection this way: "Sheathing - This inspection will take place before any paper is stapled onto the shear walls. The portal framing, continuous shear, shear walls, and roof will be inspected for proper nailing patterns and blocking." The roof is named expressly, and the inspection has to happen before the deck is papered over. At the later framing inspection "The inspector will require the roof truss submittal to be on-site to complete the inspection." WHAT THIS RECORD DOES NOT STATE. Gooding County publishes no sheathing thickness, span rating or fastener schedule of its own, and it publishes no adopting ordinance or amendment list, so whether it has amended the residential code's sheathing provisions is unknown rather than shown to be absent. The figures a crew works to come from the 2018 International Residential Code as the County has named it, and this record does not restate that text or borrow numbers from a neighbouring jurisdiction.

6.0% - the Idaho state rate, with no local add-on anywhere in Gooding County. Idaho Code 63-3619 imposes the state sales tax "at the rate of six percent (6%)". Idaho counties levy no sales tax at all, and Idaho has only two kinds of local sales tax, neither of which reaches roofing work here. The first is the resort-city local-option tax under Idaho Code Title 50, Chapter 10; the Idaho State Tax Commission publishes the list of cities that levy one, and no Gooding County city appears on it. The second is an auditorium-district tax, which the Tax Commission states can be charged only on short-term lodging of thirty days or less and so never reaches roofing work. HOW A ROOF IS TAXED IN IDAHO, WHICH MATTERS MORE THAN THE RATE. The Tax Commission's contractor guidance states that "Idaho sales tax law says contractors are the consumers (end users) of all the goods they use. As a result, they must pay sales tax on all purchases", and it names roofers among the contractors it covers. The roofer pays the 6% on materials at the supply house; the homeowner's invoice carries no sales tax line at all, on materials or on labour, because a contractor does not charge sales tax to the customer. The Commission adds that if sales tax is charged on the bill, the customer can refuse to pay it. A customer's own sales-tax exemption does not carry over to the contractor.