Building Connections Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections

Building Connections

Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections news and events

New Electrical Compliance Program Coming Soon

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The Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections has a new electrical compliance inspector. The compliance inspector will work in conjunction with the Department of Labor and Industries to seek out and cite non-licensed workers and contractors. This enforcement is new to the City of Seattle and will be an ongoing project.

September Workshop for Boiler and Conveyance Customers

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We are inviting anyone who is interested in using or is currently using the Seattle Services Portal to manage their boiler or conveyance records to come to our workshop this summer. This is a chance to see how you can use this tool to manage your records online. We would love the opportunity to answer your questions and hear any of your concerns.

Coming Soon: New Plan Review Process

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SDCI is pleased to announce that we are planning some exciting changes to how we review plan sets. This fall, we will stop sending out standard letter-based corrections for plan reviews and begin providing marked-up documents using the Bluebeam software application. This application allows reviewers to place comments directly where they apply on the plan set, instead of describing the location of the issue in a letter. We’re confident that this change will enhance the clarity of our comments.

SEPA Decision for Seattle’s Permanent Floodplain Development Regulations

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In February of 2020, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) required Seattle to update our floodplain regulations to include FEMA’s new Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRM) and the Flood Insurance Study (FIS). FEMA’s adoption of the new map and study also included an audit of Seattle’s floodplain regulations. Through the audit, FEMA identified several places in Seattle’s code that needed to be amended in order to comply with the minimum standards in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). FEMA included the following required amendments in their audit: new definitions and updates to existing definitions to meet minimum standards; updates to the regulatory floodway development standards; and the inclusion of newly mapped coastal high hazard flood zone (VE zone) and required regulations for this zone.

My Records Improvements Make It Easier to Manage Your Projects

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The Seattle Services Portal improvements team has been working on a variety of feature updates to make it easier to use the Seattle Services Portal. On June 10, they will release an update that includes improvements to the My Records page that will make it easier to see all your records in one place, and easier to filter and sort your records to find what you need.

SDCI Initial Plan Review Update

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SDCI uses target review dates as a way to prioritize and assign projects. The target dates are based upon goals that we established for “typical” application and demand volumes. These dates help us balance our staffing levels to meet those “typical” goals. We may not be able to meet our target dates if we have an unusually high volume of work compared to our available staffing levels. Recently, the work volume has greatly outweighed our available staffing levels, and we are running longer on our initial review timeframes.

Under our normal workload, we can complete the initial plan review within 2 – 4 weeks of accepting your application for simple and medium projects and within 8 – 12 weeks after we accept your application for complex projects. However, due to the high work volume, we are currently completing initial plan review 2 – 6 weeks later.

2018 Seattle Energy Code Trainings Available

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The 2018 Seattle Energy Code went into effect on March 15, with a number of significant changes from the prior edition that impact HVAC systems, lighting, water heating, energy modeling, and more. These changes continue Seattle’s move towards a high-efficiency, carbon neutral building stock.