Filling out a building permit application in Salinas looks straightforward: Complete a form including adding your contact and property information, the professionals who are overseeing or designing your project, the type of construction, and its size. In practice, however, it can be a lengthy process.
“When somebody submits for a permit, it’s not an automatic approval,” says Lorenzo Sanchez, Salinas’ code enforcement manager. Different departments including engineering, building, planning and fire prevention divisions all work simultaneously on every application.
That goes for both new construction and for unpermitted existing construction. While Sanchez says the process can move fast and attributes drawn-out processes to incomplete applications, many residents complain about what feels like an impossible process.
Teresa Torres built a pergola without a permit, after she says she was told at the city’s permit center she didn’t need one. Later, she learned it was required. Getting a permit after the fact has been a maze that’s gone on since 2018. Since she started the process to get into compliance, she has a pile of documents, including photos, revisions, and back-and-forth emails trying to solve the issue.
City officials issued five citations to Torres from September 2020 to November 2021. Her application for construction to bring the pergola into compliance was filed Aug. 11, 2021 and approved eight months later, on April 6. She finally got a permit for her pergola – but also faces fines totaling $5,700.
Torres is not alone. The city is working on over 1,300 code enforcement violation cases. On June 14, Salinas City Council unanimously approved a special assessment to collect $29,427.98 from 68 property owners with outstanding fines and fees.
“While the main objective is to bring properties into compliance, the inspection fees and cost recovery is necessary to remediate properties, eliminate unsafe conditions, and clear these cases,” according to a report from Sanchez to City Council.
Sanchez reiterates that the main goal is compliance, and communication is key: “We don’t expect everything to be completed within 30 days, but we want to make sure that the process is moving forward,” he says.
Issues range from serious fire hazards to unpermitted pergolas. But frustrations run high. City Councilmember Christie Cromeenes helped a constituent get a construction permit for an additional parking spot. The task took over eight months. “You basically go through a process like you were adding a third story on your house, to get this little piece of cement,” she says.
She wants common permits – for things like water heater installation or fences – to be standardized and easy.
In December, Cromeenes had her own saga after her fence fell down. In the mail, she received a $100 fine and notice of three weeks to put it back up, without warning. “It was an extremely short period of time for me to rectify that,” she says. To do it, she put $1,200 on her credit card; the fence is back.