(a) Until a comprehensive storm sewerage system has been completed within the City Storm Sewer District, no building permit for construction within the corporate limits of the City shall be issued by the Chief Building Official until and unless the City Engineer first issues a herein required permit approving the elevation of the structure in its relationship to the established or projected road grade, which permits shall be known as a grade permit.
(b) The City Engineer is directed to make an investigation of each grade permit application, and he shall approve the issuance of a grade permit on the basis of the susceptibility of the proposed construction to flooding. The City Engineer shall be guided by the height of the proposed construction relative to the established or projected road grade. The City Engineer shall also consider whether the applicant has proposed to remove surface waters by a private storm sewerage system, and he shall consider the general topographic contour of the land, its elevation, the nature of the soil, the amount of growth upon the land, its run-off factor and the general environment of surrounding properties. If the City Engineer finds that the property and the construction proposed thereupon is likely to flood as a result of surface water accumulation, he shall not issue a grade permit, nor shall the Chief Building Official issue a building permit for the proposed construction until a storm sewerage system is completed within the district. The City Engineer shall set grade elevations within minimum ranges of tolerances for each specific property, which elevations and tolerances shall be professionally calculated by him so as to prevent the undue flooding of the subject property, of neighboring properties and of the public ways. No person shall construct any structure otherwise than in accordance with the grade and elevation established by the City Engineer.
(c) It shall be the duty of the City Engineer and his staff to make an actual survey and professional study by the use of topographical maps and other engineering data in order to establish the range of grade and thereafter to issue the grade permit. The fee for the permit and services rendered by the City Engineer is established at twenty dollars ($20.00) for each structure to be built within the corporate limits which shall necessitate the issuance of a building permit for new construction. For structures other than one-, two-, or three-family dwellings and related accessory buildings, the grade permit fee shall be incorporated into the engineering permit fee. Therefore, the twenty-dollar ($20.00) grade permit fee shall be collected for one-, two-, or three-family dwellings.
(Ord. 2012-4. Passed 1-26-12.)