Clark County Community Development Learning Lab

0:00 >> 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.

0:27 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? Alrighty, 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.

1:26 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 your 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

2:25 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 area 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

3:24 of occupancy. The certificate of occupancy will only be issued after all building and fire marshal 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 this 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 use isn't quite clear

4:23 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, in 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. 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

5:21 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.

6:15 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,

7:14 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 of a general commercial zone. This one's Skyview 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.

8:14 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. NC is your neighborhood commercial. CC is your community commercial. And GC is general commercial.

9:13 And within that, you'll see different uses. And you'll see some CODA 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

10:11 but place tenants whose businesses don't quite fit in there. That building owner is working with land use on a nonconforming 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, we'll 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 tenant's proposed floor plan

11:11 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.

12:09 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

13:09 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 checklist 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

14:08 and if one or more suites are being occupied, please indicate the primary entrance. And at this time, I'd like to turn the presentation over to Sherry Williams, one of our fantastic commercial plans examiners. Her team members include Jason Walker, Melody Meyers and Anna Schmidt. They wanted to share what they're looking for during the building plan review. Sherry? - Thank you, Lori. Like she said, my name's Sherry Williams. I'm a plans examiner and that simply means I just review the plans for like co-consistency issues. So we have a book that we're just gonna pass around. That's the size of the book that we use. It doesn't matter if the project is small, large, a move-in plus, a tenant improvement, new or existing, we're probably gonna use that same book.

15:05 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 lot that goes into just a simple project. Where am I at? Also, I just wanted to remind you that next year in May, the code cycle will be changing to the 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 example, determine 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 dimension. This is an example of what not to submit.

16:03 So this plan doesn't show doors. The last slide mentioned that your, your plans had to be to scale. This is not to 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 means of egress is important. We need to know how you're getting out of the building. 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 is simply just the door in, but it still needed to figure out how you're leaving the building for fire life safety reasons.

16:59 Code summary. So if you could just put on the, we have this little form, it's over there in the packet, the scope of work indicate the use. So if it's a business is a B, if it's a store, just 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 resistant rating and the material used in the building. Most buildings will be 5B, but there are cases where that could be different and then your fire resistant rating could change for your exterior, interior walls, what have you. The design occupant load. That is, there's a table in that book that's floating around

17:58 and that is the factors that we use to determine how many occupants 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 sprinkled. This is needed to determine the number of exit, again, the means of 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 5B,

18:58 but for example, if you have a type 3A, as you can see in the table, it could need to have a five resistor rating assembly. So that is why we ask 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 15 we would use. But knowing that this space also is standing space, 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 will say 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.

19:57 Here's a breakdown of kind of that code summary. It would be an A3, 5B, stories six, the area, which is important, 'cause then you use the occupant load factor that you see below to determine your occupant load. The seven for just chairs, five for standing, 15 for chairs, tables and chairs. And then let us know if it's sprinkled. When architect is not needed. Less than 4,000 square feet, and when the proposed design does not affect the life safety. However, if the plans, however, if the plans are not, if you're not demonstrating this, then we can ask for an architect, and maybe we'll. Accessibility, this is, this comes up a lot.

20:56 So there is an exception in the IEBC. I really suggest that you use the IEBC. It's helpful. So if you have some existing items that in the space, this allows, and the IEBC allows for cumulative costs of providing the accessible route of travel, toilet facilities, and drinking fountains. And they are not required to exceed 20% of the costs of the alterations affecting the area of primary function. So however, if you are building new, for example, that your clearances at your doors are still required, counters in a break room are still required to have a certain height. And if you have the sales counter, they're still required to meet accessibility. - So Sherry, 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

21:56 and would need to comply with 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 IEBC, if you happen to use that method for your project. The separate permits required are mechanical, plumbing, and storage racks. And mechanical, we need to see the items shown on the screen here, as well as you need to submit the Washington State Energy Code 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.

22:53 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 are addressed sooner than later. Show the layout if known, showing the layout helps with exiting, and 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 a deferred item. If you're changing the lighting, then it also must comply with the 2021 Worcester 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.

23:53 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 staffs 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. I 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.

24:47 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 a 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.

25:27 Our land use program 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,

26:26 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 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,

27:26 I encourage a Q&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 Sherry was mentioning so that we can ensure when the fire marshal comes out and the building inspectors come out

28:26 that the plans that were approved are how you're using your space. - Thank you. - Uh-huh. 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. (audience applauding) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues)