Permits!

We achieved a major milestone this week when our building permits were approved by the SF Department of Building Inspection (DBI). Unfortunately, this city agency has a terrible reputation among contractors, business owners, architects, homeowners and anyone else who has ever tried to apply for a permit for building or zoning... We entered into this process with trepidation, as many other restauranteurs have described it as a hellish experience.

Considering all the negative hype, the process was really not that terrible. It did take nearly 16 hours of patient and anxious waiting as the inspectors meticulously poured over our plans looking for anything amiss to mark up and edit, but in the end we left their office full of excitement and feeling very accomplished (and much less rich-- total permitting fees: $33,500!). I can empathize with DBI inspectors because people go in there with their plans that may represent lifelong dreams, extraordinary expense, and years of planning, only to be told by DBI that their project is impossible due to Building Code Chapter 10 Section 109.35.c Paragraph 2.... After all, their job is to make sure your plans comply with the Code, not to make sure your project gets built. It is easy to blame the inspectors and the City for slowing down or discouraging development and progress but, in truth, without a carefully written and policed set of Code, many poorly conceived or unsafe projects would surely get built.

Approved (or, "stamped") permits are a major milestone because it means that construction can begin and many many months of ideation, conceptualization, sketching, planning, architectural drawings, fundraising, networking, coordinating, legal negotiations, etc are ready to become a tangible, three-dimensional THING that you can actually see, touch (and eventually taste and smell, in our case!). In short, it is one of the last major hurdles to get over before our dream becomes a reality. Of course there is still a huge amount of work to do and many potential pitfalls to avoid, but we feel we have already accomplished a great deal by obtaining the permits. As our architect quipped, "Congratulations! We have permits... now the real work begins!"

Title 24

Never heard of Title 24? Me neither. This is another odd bit of planning/building code that I had never heard a peep about before getting into the restaurant business. Though it applies to many businesses and residential properties, it is often the bain of new restaurants.

"Title 24" is the abbreviated name for Part 6 of the California Code of Regulations and is the alternate (and much less wordy) name of "The Energy Efficiency Standards for Residential and Nonresidential Buildings". Title 24 was established in 1978 to govern energy use in CA buildings and to perturb designers who like to illuminate spaces with lots and lots of light bulbs.

The essence of Title 24 is that a business may only use a certain total number of watts of electricity per square foot of indoor space. This total is called "lighting power" and is often much lower than one hopes. The trick is that lighting power is the sum of the maximum wattage of fixtures planned for the space--even if you plan to use lower wattage bulbs or dim the lights, your fixtures' wattage may add up to be too much and will not pass plan check or inspection. In practice, Title 24 is rarely considered after permitting and inspections are completed and business owners change or modify their lighting knowingly (or unknowingly) violating Title 24. I have yet to hear of any action taken against those that break the rule, but I'm sure there are examples out there.

Implications for us regarding Title 24 are that the light fixtures must be chosen early on in the planning process. While I initially thought that we could leave these details to the end of the project, that is not the case. Since individual light fixtures are rated for a certain number of watts, we need to know exactly how which pieces of equipment (and how many of them) will be used before applying for permits.

Lighting is perhaps the most crucial component of a restaurant's ambiance and can drastically effect the mood in a space. It can also be one of the most expensive design elements! Gitane (at left) has beautiful light fixtures that are a showpiece in their restaurant and help create the romantic, sexy vibe at the bar... these babies must have cost a fortune, but they are really impressive.

In our case, our seasonally changing, dynamic decor requires much forethought in lighting... I have my eyes on some industrial pendants and architect's drafting lights, but they are very pricey.... we'll see what other bright ideas our designer comes up with!