How a Watertown addition runs, from feasibility to sign off
Step 1. Step one is feasibility, not a floor plan
Before anyone sketches a room, somebody has to read your lot against the city's dimensional table. Setbacks, height, lot coverage and impervious area all sit in that table, and on a small older lot one of them is usually the limit. Draw first and you pay for a design that may need relief you did not know about. Read first and the design starts from what the lot allows.
Step 2. The measure up and the feasibility note
We measure the lot and the house together: where the house sits, the side and rear yards, the roofline, the footprint, and what is paved or covered. Those numbers go against the table for your zone. You get back a written note that tells you which of three routes is open to you (as of right, a special permit finding, or a variance), whether you are going to need a finding before a permit can issue, and which single dimension is the tight one. Everything after this rests on that note.
Step 3. What the written quote covers
The quote follows the note, so it is written for the route you are actually on. It lists the scope trade by trade, what is included, what is left to you, and which items are your selections. It states the route it assumes. If a hearing changes the plan, the quote changes on paper before the work does.
Step 4. Drawings, and which permit route you are on
The route decides what the drawings have to show, so it is settled before they are final. On the as of right route the addition fits the table, and drawings go to the building department with the permit application. On the finding route the house or lot already falls short of the table, and the addition must not make things worse in a way the Board would find harmful to the neighborhood. A variance is for a design that needs a dimension the table does not allow and no finding covers, and it is the highest bar, so we say so early. The set includes a plot plan carrying the dimensions the reviewer will check.
Step 5. If you need a finding: notice, hearing, decision
Fear of the Board of Appeals stops more additions here than the zoning itself does, but it is a public board working to limits the city has to keep. Notice of the hearing is published at least fourteen days ahead. The public hearing is held within sixty five days of filing. For a special permit the decision comes within ninety days of the hearing, and for a variance within one hundred days of filing. If the Board misses its window, the application is constructively approved, unless both sides agreed in writing to extend it. At the hearing you present the plan, abutters may speak, and the Board asks questions. We prepare the drawings and the plot plan you present from. A decision then goes through filing and an appeal period before anything is built on it, so the building permit waits on that.
Step 6. Staging a build on a lot with no room
On a narrow lot the build is a logistics problem first, and we plan it before the permit is pulled. The dumpster goes on the driveway if it can carry the weight and still leave a path. Otherwise it goes on the street, and we check with the city whether a permit is needed before it is ordered. The driveway that is also your only parking is the first thing the work takes, so we settle where the cars go before the first delivery, not on the morning of it. With a side yard as tight as ten feet, material arrives in small drops, hand carried or moved on narrow carts, and we stage it so it blocks neither a neighbor nor your exit. In a two family, the second unit keeps its entry, its egress and its utilities. Shutoffs are scheduled and announced ahead, and the work area is sealed off from the occupied side.
Step 7. Framing and getting weather tight
Excavation and foundation come first, and the footing is inspected before it is covered. Framing cannot start until the foundation is set. Then come the frame, the roof deck, the windows and the exterior doors, until the shell sheds water. Only after that do wiring and plumbing go in, because mechanicals run in an open frame are the first things weather ruins.
Step 8. Inspections and the punch list
Each inspection gates the next stage: foundation before backfill, framing and rough mechanicals before insulation, insulation before drywall, and the final before anyone occupies the space. We schedule them and meet the inspector on site. When the final clears, we walk the addition with you and write the punch list, and the job is not closed until the list is.
Changes, and how we keep them rare
Most changes come from the existing house, not the addition. The measure up and the feasibility note catch the large ones. When something does turn up, such as framing that does not match what was assumed, we stop, show you, and put the change in writing before the work happens. The change to watch is anything that alters the footprint, because it can send you back to the Board. We flag that to you before it is drawn.
Start with a zoning check
Send us the address and what you want to build. We read the lot against the dimensional table and send back the written note before a drawing exists. You can also see the full scope of a home addition or contact us.