“Dear PoPville,
I have been trying for two years to get a permit to build a retaining wall in my backyard from the Department of Buildings. Over this time, I have submitted 5 or 6 versions of the design, hired two separate engineering firms (structural and civil) in order to respond to DOB’s comments, and enlisted the help of my ANC commissioner (who got nowhere). In effect, I have done everything I can think of except hiring a facilitator.
DOB has taken my application offline twice, which wipes out all the previous submissions and comments. Whereupon I get new, sometimes contradictory comments and can never get an answer from the commenter when I try to clarify.
In the last round of comments, I was referred to another retaining wall project and told my drawings should be more like the ones submitted in this case, but I cannot find these drawings on the DOB system to give to my engineer.
Needless to say, I am at my wits end! So I have two questions for PoPville readers:
1. What am I doing wrong? Any similar experiences and how did you finally get the permit?
2. Can someone provide detailed instructions on how to find the plans from another permit application?
I cannot get any results from the eRecords web site using the permit number that I have.”