One of the essential steps in the design process is acquiring the proper permits to construct your steel building. Permits serve two purposes: to ensure that your structure is appropriate for the location you want to build, and to provide approval that your building design is safe for its purpose.
Zoning Permits
Zoning laws and rules are created by local governments to protect property values and organize the town or city into areas selected for specific areas. For instance, you would not want a house in a bunch of factory buildings or a massive warehouse in the middle of a cozy residential neighborhood.
Zoning laws can be nuanced and complicated, so it is probably best to talk to a local building official directly to make sure that your planned steel building project will be allowable under their zoning restrictions.
Even if the area is not specifically zoned for the type of building that you want to erect, the local building official might be willing to make compromises depending on your ability to alter your design. For instance, sometimes they will ask for your exterior to fit certain specifications to blend in with the other surrounding buildings so that they don’t harm the area’s aesthetic appeal.
Building Permits
Once the local building officials have approved your building’s zoning specifications, you will need to have your building permits approved. Building permits are concerned with the safety of the construction process and the finished steel building. They want to make sure that erection process will be safe, and that after the erection is complete it is safe for occupation.
As with the zoning permits, you should be consulting directly with a local building official regarding your building permits. For instance, a local government might have minimum standard for snow and wind loads, but might have a higher requirements for the specific plot on which you wish to build based on its direct surroundings.