Hamilton County, Indiana - Hamilton County Plan Commission (Planning Department)

Hamilton County, Indiana

county

9615 E 148th Street Suite 101, Noblesville, IN 46060

Not required

Not required

WORK OUT WHICH OF THE NINE JURISDICTIONS THE ADDRESS IS IN BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE. The Plan Commission publishes a map of the county divided into nine planning jurisdictions and states that it "has jurisdiction over the areas of the County shown in blue on the map below." The map colours the eastern townships, White River in the north and Wayne in the south, as the Plan Commission's own area, and the County's Building Permit application offers exactly three township boxes to tick: Noblesville, Wayne and White River. The County's codified enabling section, Hamilton County Code Section 36-7-4-202(b), describes the same area in older words: the commission "has jurisdiction over the areas of the county not otherwise zoned on March 22, 1988, being parts of Adams and Noblesville Townships and all of Wayne and White River Townships in the county." Those two descriptions differ over Adams Township, which the current map colours as the Town of Sheridan's area, so on a job anywhere near a municipal boundary confirm the jurisdiction with the Plan Commission before filing anything. Note too that the eight municipal areas are drawn on township lines and take in a great deal of rural land outside the corporate limits of the city or town they are named for, so being outside a town does not put an address in the County's area. The other eight offices, each named on the County's own jurisdiction page with its address and telephone number, are the Carmel Department of Community Services at 1 Carmel Civic Square on (317) 571-2417, the Fishers Community Development Department at 1 Municipal Drive on (317) 595-3155, the Noblesville Department of Planning and Development at 16 S. 10th Street on (317) 776-6325, the Westfield Community Services Department at 2728 East 171st Street on (317) 804-3170, Arcadia Building and Zoning at 208 W Main Street on (317) 695-1892, Atlanta Building and Zoning at 105 E Main Street on (765) 292-2626, the Town of Cicero Plan Commission at 331 E Jackson Street on (317) 984-5845, and Sheridan Building and Zoning at 506 S. Main St on (317) 210-0350. None of the eight contracts its building permitting back to the County. The Plan Commission itself has moved and now sits at 9615 E 148th Street Suite 101, Noblesville, open Monday to Friday 8am to 4:30pm on (317) 776-8490; some of its own older PDFs still print the previous address at One Hamilton County Square. Permits are issued as Improvement Location Permits and applications may be emailed to [email protected]. For work that does need one, construction must start within six months of the permit date or the permit expires, primary structures must be finished within 18 months and accessory structures within nine, and one 12 month extension may be granted by the plan director. Two County rules are worth knowing even though neither is a roofing provision. First, the County requires two copies of truss design drawings and calculations sealed and signed by a registered Indiana architect or engineer on every page whenever manufactured trusses are used, and a separate Advanced Structural Components reporting form under IC 22-11-21 for lightweight I-joists or lightweight roof trusses. Second, if you intend to use a product or method of installation the Indiana Residential Code does not approve, the County requires the current ICC Evaluation Service report and the manufacturer's current installation instructions up front; if an inspector finds an unapproved product on site instead, work on that part stops until the paperwork is reviewed and a 35 dollar re-review fee is paid.

STATE-SET, NOT COUNTY-SET, AND THE COUNTY SAYS SO ON ITS OWN FORM. One and two family dwellings in the Hamilton County Plan Commission area 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" (675 IAC 14-4.4-1). That rule was filed November 26, 2019 and formally readopted November 18, 2025. There is no county edition year to track, and no county may set one: 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) bars a city, town or county from adopting an ordinance that conflicts with or includes more stringent or more detailed requirements than those rules. The County states the same thing from its own side. Its Building Permit application says the submitted construction documents "will be reviewed for compliance with the minimum standards as set forth in the 'Indiana Residential Code, 2020 Edition'", and it lists the code books in force for a single family residence within the Plan Commission's jurisdiction as the Indiana Residential Code 2020 Edition, the Indiana Electrical Code 2009 Edition, the Indiana Plumbing Code 2012 Edition, energy efficiency under Chapter 11 of the 2020 Indiana Residential Code, and the Indiana Visitability Rule for One and Two Family Dwellings and Townhouses. Note for anyone reading the County's codified ordinances rather than its forms: Section 36-7-4-600 of the Hamilton County Code says the Code does not affect any county building code ordinance "as now or hereafter amended", and that copies of such ordinances are on file with the county auditor rather than printed in the Code, so the codified text is not where the building code lives.

Required — REQUIRED, STATEWIDE AND UNCONDITIONAL, AT BOTH EAVES AND RAKES. 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": "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 things in that quotation are the State's own typography rather than ours: "rood deck" in the fourth sentence is a typo in the published document and means the roof deck, and the document runs the last two sentences together with no full stop after "Section R905.2.5". Hamilton County neither adds to this nor may subtract from it, because IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars a city, town or county from an ordinance more stringent or more detailed than the state commission's rules and (a)(2) gives those rules precedence over any local ordinance on the same subject. 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." That sentence matters more here than in most places, because a re-roof in the Plan Commission's area needs no County permit and therefore gets no County inspection. No permit does not mean no code. About drip edge

Not required — NOT CATEGORICALLY REQUIRED HERE, AND IN INDIANA THIS IS A COUNTY BY COUNTY ANSWER RATHER THAN A STATE ONE. Indiana throws out 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. Hamilton County is row 29, and that row carries "No" in the column headed "Ice Shield Underlayment Required." Only 27 Indiana counties, almost all of them in the northern tier, carry "Yes" in that column; the other 65 carry "No", so a rule of thumb carried down from Fort Wayne or from a lake effect county is wrong in Hamilton County, and so is any assumption that Indiana has a single statewide answer. An ice barrier can still be mandatory on a particular job here by a second, independent route, which the Indiana State Building Commissioner sets 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 sits in that second group, so read the printed installation instructions for the shingle you are actually installing before deciding. What the barrier must be made of and how far up the slope it must run is base International Residential Code content that Indiana does not modify; take it from the adopted 2018 edition rather than from a neighbouring state. About ice & water barrier

Not required — NO MID ROOF, TEAR OFF OR DECK STAGE EXISTS, AND ON AN ORDINARY RE-ROOF THERE IS NO COUNTY INSPECTION AT ALL. A re-roof in the Hamilton County Plan Commission area needs no permit, and with no permit there is no inspection. Where a roofing job does cross into permit territory because of structural work, the County's published inspection stages were read in full and none of them is a roofing stage. The adopted 2022 fee ordinance lists its inspections as Residential, Residential Re-Inspection, Commercial, Commercial Re-Inspection and Timed Inspection, and then lists the additional inspections it charges for as Footing and Under slab Plumbing, Electrical, Rough-In, Final Structure, Final Site, and All Other Inspections. The County's Building Permit application groups its subcontractor declarations under the same sequence, Foundation, Foundation Work, Rough-In, Energy and Final, and offers lines for excavators, footings, basement, crawl and slab, framing, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, fireplace, fireblocking, insulation, finish carpenter and final grading. There is no roofing line anywhere on that form and no tear off, roof deck, dry-in or mid roof stage in either document. Nothing in the state code creates one either: 675 IAC 14-4.4 says nothing about inspection staging, which in Indiana is entirely a local administrative matter.

Not required — NO IMPACT RESISTANCE MANDATE APPLIES IN HAMILTON COUNTY, AND THE COUNTY HAS NO POWER TO CREATE ONE. The 2020 Indiana Residential Code, 675 IAC 14-4.4, was read in full and contains no occurrence of UL 2218, Class 4, Class IV or FM 4473, the four standards and class designations that answer this question; its only roof covering amendments delete the word "approved" from two asphalt shingle attachment and flashing sections, delete the word "printed" from a third, and delete one sentence from the rooftop photovoltaic section. The County's own Unified Development Ordinance was also read and contains none of those four terms and no roof covering provision at all. Because IC 22-13-2-3(a)(2) gives the state commission's rules precedence over any local ordinance covering the same subject matter and 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 those rules, Hamilton County could not impose an impact resistance requirement on a roof covering even if it wanted one. An insurance discount for a Class 4 shingle is a matter between the homeowner and their carrier, not a code requirement, and should never be quoted as one. Note also that "Class 2" in Indiana building law is a structure class under IC 22-12-1-5, a one or two family dwelling, and has nothing to do with a hail rating.

NO PERMIT AND NO FEE FOR A RE-ROOF, AND THE COUNTY SAYS IT TWICE. The operative instrument is the County's own adopted fee ordinance, Ordinance No. 09-12-2022-A, "AN ORDINANCE ESTABLISHING A SCHEDULE OF FEES, CHARGES AND EXPENSES FOR THE JURISDICTIONAL AREA OF THE HAMILTON COUNTY PLAN COMMISSION", certified by the Plan Commission in August 2022 and passed and adopted by the County Commissioners in September 2022 over the President's signature and the Auditor's attestation. Under its own heading "Permit Requirement" it provides that "No fee or permit shall be required for normal maintenance and repair operations, including, but not limited to, roofing, flooring repairs, plumbing, and heating repairs and replacement, insulation and minor adjustments or replacements to building openings, such as doors and windows." Read the heading before the item, because the paragraph immediately above it is headed "Application Fee Exemption" and waives only a fee for county and township agencies. This one is its own heading and it waives the permit as well as the fee, and roofing is the first thing it names. The Plan Commission answers the same question a second way in its published FAQ: "Within the Hamilton County Plan Commission Jurisdictional area the only areas of home improvement / construction that do not require a building permit consist of the replacement of windows and doors, interior decorating, exterior painting, and the replacement of shingles on a roof. All other areas of structural improvement, repair, or addition requires that a building permit be obtained." So the trigger is structural work, not a dollar figure and not a square count. A like-for-like tear off and re-cover is outside the permit requirement entirely. Replacing rotten decking, sistering or replacing rafters or trusses, framing a new dormer, or anything that enlarges the roof is structural work and puts the job back inside it, priced off the fee schedule as a Dwelling Remodel at 150 dollars plus 10 cents per square foot plus 95 dollars for the certificate of occupancy, or as Specific Structural Modifications at 75 dollars residential. The fee schedule carries no roofing or re-roofing line of any kind. Starting work that does need a permit before getting one costs 1.5 times the regular fee on a first offence, 2 times on a second and 3 times on a third.

115 mph. Indiana replaces the model International Residential Code Table R301.2(1) with its own county by county table at 675 IAC 14-4.4-5, and the Hamilton County row, number 29, reads across as: Wind Speed 115 MPH; Seismic Design Category A; Ground Snow 20 PSF; Foundation 30 inches; Winter Design Temp 2 degrees F; 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 F. All 92 Indiana counties carry the same 115 mph figure, so wind speed is not a Hamilton County variable and there is nothing local to look up. Exposure category is not a state or county lever either. It is determined site by site under Section R301.2.1.4, whose fourth sentence Indiana substitutes at 675 IAC 14-4.4-4 to say that on a subdivision or master planned site the exposure category for an individual structure is based on the site conditions that will exist once all adjacent structures on the site have been constructed, where that construction is expected to begin within 2 years.

NO COUNTY RULE AND NO STATE AMENDMENT, SO THE BASE CODE GOVERNS UNMODIFIED. Roofing in the Hamilton County Plan Commission area 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. Indiana does amend four sections of the roof assemblies chapter, and it is worth knowing which, because they are sometimes described as leaving Chapter 9 untouched and that is not accurate: 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 the word "approved" from Section R905.2.6 Attachment, 14-4.4-86 deletes the word "approved" from Section R905.2.8 Flashing, and 14-4.4-87 deletes the word "printed" from Section R905.2.8.4 Other flashing. None of the four touches layer counts, overlays or recovering. Hamilton County could not add a layer rule of its own in any event, because IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars a city, town or county from adopting an ordinance that conflicts with or includes more stringent or more detailed requirements than the state commission's rules, and (a)(2) gives those rules precedence over any local ordinance covering the same subject matter. Nothing in the County's own instruments touches the point either: its Unified Development Ordinance was read and contains no roof covering provision at all. So the answer on a job out here is the base International Residential Code rule on recovering an existing roof, in the 2018 edition, unchanged by Indiana and unavailable to the County to change. Read that rule out of the adopted edition rather than carrying an overlay allowance across from another state, and remember that because a re-roof needs no County permit there is no plan review that would catch you getting it wrong.

7% statewide. Indiana levies a single state sales tax rate with no county or municipal add-on, so there is nothing extra on a Hamilton County invoice. The Department of Revenue says so on the same page that enumerates the county level taxes Indiana does levy: "The sales tax for the entire State of Indiana is 7%." Those county taxes are a local income tax, an innkeeper's tax and a food and beverage tax, none of which reaches roofing materials. Where the 7% falls depends on the contract, and the Department's Sales Tax Information Bulletin #60, which names roofing among its examples of contractors, turns on one distinction: a "Time and Material Contract" is one "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 for 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 point worth reading twice on a time and material job: the bulletin notes that "Installation charges separately stated on an invoice are not included in gross retail income," so separately stated on-site installation labor 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.