All right. All right. Good
morning. And thank you for
taking time out of your
schedules to join us today.
You're here for the importance
of permitting commercial tenant
occupancy. We developed this as
a guide for landlords,
commercial real estate agents
and prospective tenants. There
will be a question and answer
session at the conclusion of
our presentation. So if you
haven't grabbed one of the
handouts, please do. You can
make notes on there and then we
can refer back to those at the
end of the presentation. Okay.
It is not. Want to click okay.
I see some familiar faces here
and I've heard some familiar
voices as I was coming in. It's
always exciting to see who's
joining us today. By a show of
hands, how many commercial
landlords do we have here?
Fantastic two. Awesome. And do
we have any commercial real
estate agents joining us? All
righty. And do we have any
business owners joining us?
Okay. Well, again, this class
was developed to fill in some
knowledge gaps that we've been
seeing as new owners take over
buildings and new tenants move
into spaces. Did you know Clark
County ranks fourth in
Washington state for new
business applications? We're
currently behind King Pearson,
Snohomish counties, and those
guys have a pretty sizable
population. Growth is driven by
population influx.
Professionals seeking to avoid
the Portland commute. Clark
County offers a strong service
and food industry sector. The
rise in business activity has
made Clark County one of the
fastest growing areas in the
whole state, with a high demand
for commercial spaces.
Considering this exciting news,
we want to share today the
importance of having business
tenant occupancy permitted.
Whether you're building is
brand new or long established,
we're here to walk you through
what you need to know from a
permitting and zoning
compliance perspective. We will
discuss the importance of
permitting tenant occupancy,
identifying the use of a
building in its zone, and fire
and life safety. We're focusing
today on existing buildings
that provide commercial tenant
space. We won't be covering.
Further back. Sorry, we won't
be covering new building
construction or additions
during this presentation. We
will define and outline the
requirements for our move in
plus and tenant improvement
programs. We will not be
covering home business
occupancies in this
presentation, but there's a
wonderful learning lab out on
our site if that interests you.
So why do we ask you to permit
occupancy? In short, it's the
law. Code compliance dictates
that a building or structure
shall not be used or occupied
in whole or in part, and a
change of occupancy of a
building or structure or
portion thereof shall not be
made until the building
official has issued a
certificate of occupancy. The
certificate of occupancy will
only be issued after all,
building and fire Marchel
inspections are passed and all
conditions of approval are met.
Conditions may include such
things as health department
sign off or Clark Regional
wastewater sign off. Okay, and
this is your goal, the
certificate of occupancy. I
know that's a little small up
there on the screen. The
handouts have it. This just
captures your permit number,
the address of the structure,
who owns it, what business is
in there? All right. So it's
important to understand your
property's zone and to offer
the space to tenants whose
businesses comply with the
legal zone. We frequently
confirm with our land use
department when a use isn't
quite clear, or when a land use
site plan might be required
prior to accepting your
occupancy permit for review. We
want to know who's in the space,
how it's being used, what
changes have been made over
time, how many community
members may be supporting the
business. This is all because
we want you, your tenants and
the community to be safe. We
want to ensure there's adequate
parking, lighting and signage,
adequate exiting, and the fire
Marshal's office will conduct
an inspection before the
certificate is issued. This
confirms that the approved
plans from your building review
match what's being done on site.
So two of the absolute most
frequent questions we hear are,
so what is my zone and what's
allowed in my zone? There are a
variety of business zones in
the county that we'll walk
through in the next couple of
slides, and we'll show you how
to use Clark County's GIS
system to find your zone. Each
zone has its own allowed and
excluded uses. And again, if
your business doesn't fit
neatly into a zone where you
want to occupy, we strongly
suggest reaching out to the
permit center or land use. Okay,
so the two most frequently seen
zones on this slide are general
commercial and community
commercial. The general
commercial zone provides a full
range of goods and services
necessary to serve large areas
of the county and the traveling
public, Whereas, community
commercial zones are intended
to provide for regular shopping
and service needs for several
adjacent neighborhoods. Okay.
And on this slide, the most
common uses are light
industrial and mixed use. Light
industrial is intended to
provide for those less
intensive industrial uses,
which produce little noise,
odor, or pollution. Mixed use
provides a community with a mix
of mutually supportive retail,
service, office and residential
uses. All right, so now we'd
like to show you how to find
your zone using Clark County's
GIS system. You'll go to the
hyperlink. You'll enter your
street address. If there's no
street address, we do have a
space for parcel number. And
then you'll click search. All
right. So again there's the
hyperlink up top. You'll enter
your street address or tax
account number also referred to
as your parcel ID. And click
search. Here's an example of a
general. Oh did it not go yet?
There we go. Apologize for the
delay. Okay, so here's an
example. Example of a general
commercial zone. This one's sky
view station. Do we have any
people familiar with that new
development? Okay. They're
considered general commercial
which again allows for a great
variety to meet the needs of
the local and traveling public.
Okay. Here's an example of
general commercial with the
highway 99 overlay. This has
some restrictions within it,
but we will work with you
specifically if you've got a
tenant going into that space.
And here's an example of light
industrial. So pay attention
right here. This is where we're
going to be focusing on the
next several slides. Your
zoning designation and the
little hyperlink to the code.
Okay. So you'll click the blue
hyperlink to pull up Unified
Development code, title 40. And
then when that pops up, you'll
see a section and click the
blue numbers to go to the
general section where your
zoning is. All right. So you'll
see on the table there are
different column headers. MCs,
your neighborhood Commercial CC
is your community commercial
and GC is general commercial.
And within that you'll see
different uses and you'll see
some code identifiers. P is
permitted uses C requires a
conditional use permit through
land use, and X indicates
specifically prohibited. So
when a property is being
marketed for lease or sale,
it's important to check what
business activity is allowed in
that zone. During the past year,
we've seen a couple of tenants
trying to place their business
where the code would require
the conditional use permit. And
while that use required it in
the community commercial zone,
scooting over a few blocks into
the general commercial zone
would have allowed it outright.
We've also seen new owners
purchase buildings in the
industrial zone, but place
tenants whose businesses don't
quite fit in there. That
building owner is working with
land use on a non-conforming
land use permit. So the great
thing is, even if it doesn't
seem like it fits into a
category, we're here to find
ways to make that work. So now
that you've learned about zones
and permitted uses, let's talk
about the two types of
commercial, existing or CME
permits that are used to move
new tenants into existing
buildings. Depending on how
much of and what kind of
changes are being done, will
direct the type of permit
needed for that new tenant. A
move in plus is used when the
prior permitted tenant's
building floor plan matches
that new tenants proposed floor
plan and the occupancy is the
same or of lower risk. Minor
changes like installing or
removing non-load bearing walls
and cosmetic changes are
allowed. We'll also allow
structural work less than
$15,000 in value on a move in,
plus, tenant improvement
permits are required when it is
the first tenant in a new
building shell. When prior
building plans are not on file,
or when a change in occupancy
type is made. Say, for instance,
warehouse to indoor sports
court. Significant changes have
been made to the floor plan
since the last permitted tenant
was there. We're going to
direct you to the tenant
improvement permit. So we've
confirmed the zone determined
your permit type. Now you're
ready to apply. You will use
our LMS system for the
administrative side, including
paying your fees. And you will
use project docs for all
drawings and documents, which
the review teams will analyze.
So our LMS permitting system
can be found at that hyperlink.
And if you do not have an
account, you will need to
create one. And you'll click
the registration link. If you
already have an LMS account,
you just go in and create your
permit and pay the fees. It's
really important after you've
created your permit and paid
the fees to reach out to our
office assistant staff to
schedule your submittal
appointment. After the office
assistants have replied to you
with your appointment time and
date. They will also provide a
link to project docs, and we'll
need you to log in there within
24 hours to keep that link from
expiring. Once you have set up
your project docs for that
permit, it will stay active
throughout the process of your
reviews. All right, so here's a
generic list of what you'll
need to upload for commercial
permits. Commercial technicians
can provide you with a more
specific list based on your
scope of work. Just reach out
and ask us copies of the
application and tenant
improvement checklists can be
found amongst the handouts, the
naming convention, and space
for the county's approval stamp
are mandatory. These are our
most frequent reasons for
sending files back before we
can route. All right, here's an
example of a site plan.
Indicate your area of work and
if one or more suites are being
occupied, please indicate the
primary entrance. Okay. And at
this time, I'd like to turn the
presentation over to Sherri
Williams, one of our fantastic
commercial plans examiners. Her
team members include Jason
Walker, Melody Myers, and Anna
Schmidt. They wanted to share
what they're looking for during
the building plan review. Shari.
>> Thank you Lori. Like she
said, my name is Sherri
Williams. I'm a plans examiner
and that simply means I just
review the plans for like code
consistency issues. So we have
a book that we was going to
pass around. That's the size of
the book that we use. Doesn't
matter if the project is small
or large, a move in, plus a
tenant improvement, new or
existing, we're probably going
to use that same book. So I
mean, I know some of the
projects seem simple, but we're
still reviewing to that level.
These are also some of the
codes that we may use to review
your plans. So there's a,
there's a lot that goes into
just a simple project. Where am
I at? Also, I just wanted to
remind you that in a next year
in May, the code Sihel will be
changing to 2024 code. So just
keep that in mind when you're
submitting. Dimension plans and
plans to scale. This is a must
even for the simplest of plans.
This helps the reviewer help
you for. For example,
determining occupant load or
your travel distance within the
building. We can't really start
the review if we don't have
plans to scale or dimensioned.
This is an example of what not
to submit. So this plan has
doesn't show doors. The last
slide mentioned that your. The.
Your plans had to be a. To
scale. This is not the scale.
This is not on the correct
format. It's a paper plate, not
paper. So we need although it's
electronic, we need them to
show up on paper. And in the
last example there was, like I
said, no doors. So it means of
egress is important. We need to
know how you're getting out of
the building. This, this
example here, like currently,
we would probably be the exit
access. And then once we got to
the stairs, that's the exit
portion and some of the one
stories, it is simply just the
door. And, but it still needed
to figure out how you're
leaving the building for fire
life safety reasons. Code
summary. So if you could just
put on the. We have this little
form. It's over there in that
packet. The scope of work
indicate the use. So if it's a
business, is it a B? If it's a
storage, it's S1. Just indicate
that on the plan. So we can.
You know, help you. This
determines the building space
limitation, the means of egress,
the fire protection system. And
then the next item we need is
the construction type. This is
also needed to determine the
fire resistance rating and the
material used in the building.
Most buildings will be five B,
but there are cases where that
could be different. And then
your fire resistance rating
could change for your exterior,
interior walls, what have you.
The design occupant load that
is there's a table in that,
that book that's floating
around, and that is the factors
that we use to determine how
many occupants can you can have
in a space. It's not really
based on if you only have one
occupant ever in the space,
it's based on code. This is
needed to determine the common
path of egress, the number of
exits required, the size of the
exits and openings. The
restroom counts. So it's very
useful to know. And then if the
building is sprinklered, this
is needed to determine the
number of exits. The. Again,
the means egress from a
building space within the
building. The travel distance.
If there's. How many doors are
needed. This is a list of all
the use and occupancies. I
think there's a handout that
also shows this. So this is
what we're talking about when
we ask for occupancy. Type of
construction. Like I said, most
of the buildings are five B,
but for example, if you have a
a type three, A, as you can see
in the table, it could need to
have a fire resistance rating
assembly. So that is why we
asked for type of construction.
The occupant load. So if we
take this space for example,
it's set up now with tables and
chairs. So in this table there
is a space right here. The the
15 we would use. But knowing
that this space also is
standing space, it's it has
been designed for five which
needs more occupants, which is
allowed to have more occupants
in this room, which requires
two exits, which this has. If
this space was, say, an office
space, it would just be seven
occupants and then it would
only need seven. So that's why
the occupant load factor is
important. Here's a breakdown
of kind of that code summary.
It would be an A3 five B
stories six the area, which is
important because then you use
the occupant load factor as you
see below to determine your
occupant load seven for just
chairs, five for standing, 15
for chairs, tables and chairs.
And then let us know if it's
sprinklered. When architect is
not needed less than 4000ft²
and when the proposed design
does not affect the life safety.
However, if the plans back.
However, if the plans are not.
If you're not demonstrating
this, then we can ask for an
architect and maybe will.
Accessibility. This is. This is
comes up a lot. So there is an
exception in the I b c I really
suggest that you use the IBC.
It's helpful. So if you have
some existing items that in the
space there. This allows in the
IBC allows for cumulative costs
of providing an accessible
route of travel, toilet
facilities and drinking
fountains and they are not
required to exceed 20% of the
cost of the alterations
affecting the area of primary
function. So. However, if you
are building new, for example,
your clearances at your doors
are still required. Counters in
the break room are still
required to have a certain
height and if you have a sales
counter, there's there's still
required to meet accessibility.
>> So Shari, if they are
relocating or remodeling a
bathroom within a space, would
that then need to apply to
these codes?
>> So that wouldn't meet the
20%, that would be a new
construction and would need to
comply with the the current
code. So yes, they do need to
apply. I mean comply with the
code. The new code. This is
where you can find that IBC. If
you happen to use that method
to. For your project. The
separate permits required are
become or mechanical plumbing
and storage racks. And
mechanical. We need to see the
items shown on the screen here
as. As well as. You need to
submit the Washington State
Energy code McEnry mechanical
summary and checklist forms.
You need the heating and load
calculations, and you may need
structural calculations. If the
units are over 400 pounds for
the plumbing plans. As it
states, you need to show the
supply drain and venting piping
just a floor plan of your
layout of your like, for
example, restroom is not what
we're looking for. We're
looking for the size of the
lines. And then there is it's
not on this. Oh hold on. The
storage racks, they often get
missed. So it's important that
they address sooner than later.
So the layout if known, shown
the layout helps with exiting.
And just so there's no
surprises later. So be sure to
show your racket. And then all
of the lighting is not a
separate permit or deferred
item. If you're changing the
lighting, then it also must
comply with the 2021 Washington
State Energy Code lighting
portion of the code. So provide
there's a lighting summary and
checklist that's required for
review. And that's it. Back to
you, Lori. Okay.
>> Thanks, Sherry. Really
appreciate that detail. That
should make a difference in the
packages we receive. So you're
all ready to submit your permit
packages, right? All right.
Well, we've presented a lot of
information today. And if you
think of questions after
today's session, please reach
out to our general line, the
permit Center's staff's, the
general line Monday through
Friday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. to
answer your calls and emails.
If we are on the phone serving
other community members, you
will get our voicemail.
Encourage you to. Please leave
a message with your name permit
number if you have it. If not,
an address, phone number, email,
and your question. If a
commercial tech is not assigned
to the general line when you
call, the technician may route
your call to another commercial
permit technician. This way.
All right. The commercial team
is available Tuesdays and
Thursdays for 30 minute Q&A
appointments. These are held
virtually via Microsoft Teams.
And depending on your scope of
work and the questions you have,
we can coordinate with such
supporting teams as land use or
commercial plans. Examiner to
join our session to request an
appointment with a commercial
permit technician about your
specific property, please reach
out to the following email. Our
Land Use program designs guides
the development in the
unincorporated areas of Clark
County. By reviewing the
proposed development plans to
make sure that the County land
use code and community
standards are met. Land use is
often whom you'll work with
when changing to a higher risk
occupancy, or when your
business type doesn't fit into
a neat package. Their contact
information is right there.
While Debbie wasn't able to
present today, she did want me
to share her contact
information. She is our lead
permit technician and then my
information is right next to
hers. So this concludes the
presentation portion of our
program. We now have
approximately 30 minutes for
questions and answers.
>> All right. If you're going
to ask a question, we ask you
to please use one of the mics
that's on your desk. To use the
mic. You'll press the button.
And when you're done asking
your question, you'll press the
button again.
>> Super. I'll answer what I
can. And if additional
information is needed before I
answer, I'll grab your name and
email so I can get back to you
as quickly as possible. First
question. Yes, ma'am.
>> So if it's like an open
storage area, that's asphalt
fencing around it, does that
person need to have an
occupancy permit for that?
>> Is there a business
operating on site?
>> It would be a business being
operated. Yes, it could be
storage. It could be, you know,
vehicles there or it could be
can't think of anything else.
>> We would need to make sure
that there is a actual
structure there. We can't just
do open parking lots for that.
But that is something that if
that's out there, I encourage a
Q and A so we can take a deep
dive into where your property
is located, what the history on
it is, and then get a positive
path forward. After seeing the
parcel, I may have one of our
land use people come over to
meet with us so that we can
ensure that your project will
fit nicely there. Okay? Yes,
ma'am.
>> If I'm just moving into an
existing space and the previous
tenant had permits, am I able
to access the plans they
submitted to use for my
application, or do I have to go
out and get new plans drawn?
>> If plans are on file, we can
share them as the before plans,
but you will need to show us
the layout of your business and
draw up a scaled floor plan
with all the items that Shari
was mentioning, so that we can
ensure. When the fire marshal
comes out and the building
inspectors come out, that the
plans that were approved are
how you're using your space.
Thank you. Any more? Quiet
crowd? No wrong questions. All
right. Well, that was quick.
And I appreciate you guys
coming out today. And we look
forward to working with you on
your projects. Again, if you
don't already have one of our
packets, please take it with
you. Please reach out to the
general line. We're all here to
help and make you a successful
transaction. Thank you