Roofing in West Allis, Wisconsin

Required

STATE-GOVERNED, NOT CITY-SET. West Allis has no authority to adopt or amend a different residential building code for a one- or two-family dwelling. Wisconsin's residential code is not a straight IRC adoption: it is the Wisconsin Uniform Dwelling Code (UDC), Wis. Admin. Code chs. SPS 320-325, drafted by Wisconsin and promulgated by the Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS) under Wis. Stat. ch. 101, subch. II. SPS 321.01 applies the chapter to "the design and construction of all one- and 2-family dwellings," and the roof-coverings section, SPS 321.28 (Weather Protection for Roofs), was most recently amended by CR 15-041 (Register December 2015 No. 720, eff. 1-1-16) -- confirmed against the Wisconsin Legislature's own published chapter, which carries a Register November 2024 No. 827 currency stamp. Preemption: Wis. Stat. Section 101.65(1)(a) lets a municipality "[s]ubject to sub. (1c), exercise jurisdiction over the construction and inspection of new dwellings by passage of ordinances," and Section 101.65(1c) provides that a municipality "[m]ay not make or enforce an ordinance under sub. (1) that is applied to a dwelling and that does not conform to this subchapter and the uniform dwelling code adopted by the department under this subchapter." That is a conformity (match/non-match) test, not a minimum floor -- the section contains no "may be more restrictive" carve-out -- so West Allis applies SPS 321 verbatim for one- and two-family dwellings. SPS 321 governs one- and two-family dwellings only; roofing on buildings of three or more units, and other commercial work, falls under the Wisconsin Commercial Building Code (Wis. Admin. Code chs. SPS 361-366, adopting the IBC), which this record does not cover. West Allis's own municipal code (hosted at westallis.municipalcodeonline.com) could not be read this session -- see permit_process_note and roofing_permit_required -- but the UDC's conformity mandate means the City has no lawful room to set a different technical roofing rule regardless.

West Allis's own "Do I Need a Permit For..." guidance page states that a homeowner who resides at the property, or a contractor holding the two required State of Wisconsin certifications (a Dwelling Contractor Certification and a Dwelling Contractor Qualifier Certification), may apply for a building permit. The stated process: submit a building permit application and plans detailing the proposed work; review can take up to 10 business days; once issued, work may begin; the homeowner or contractor must then schedule inspections with the inspector, for example excavation-before-pour, rough inspections (building, electrical and plumbing) before covering work with finish materials, and a final inspection before use or occupancy. For roofing specifically, the City states that an ordinary re-roof of a house is treated as maintenance and does not generally require a permit at all, so this general inspection sequence would not be triggered for that narrow category of work; a permit is stated to be required only where the project involves a structural change, such as converting a flat roof to a pitched roof or adding a dormer. West Allis's own codified municipal code (hosted at westallis.municipalcodeonline.com) could not be opened this session -- its content endpoint returned HTTP 500 "Unauthorized Access" to every scripted request tried, with and without a browser user-agent -- so the underlying enacted ordinance behind this guidance was not independently read. Confirm with West Allis Building Inspection, 414-302-2489, before relying on the guidance for an edge case.