Kentucky Building Permit Guides

Kentucky runs a mini/maxi code, and the phrase carries real weight. The Kentucky Building Code at 815 KAR 7:120 and the Kentucky Residential Code at 815 KAR 7:125 are statewide, uniform and mandatory, and no local government may adopt or enforce any other building code — the code is both the minimum and the maximum. The Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction adopts them; the city or county enforces them. The current editions are the 2018 Kentucky Building Code, Fourth Edition and the 2018 Kentucky Residential Code, Third Edition, both built on the 2015 International Codes with Kentucky amendments that supersede any conflicting model provision. Detached one- and two-family dwellings and townhouses of up to three storeys fall under the residential code; everything else under the building code.

The codes draw the exemption line and it is the same line across the Commonwealth. Ordinary repairs need no permit. Building, extending, altering, repairing, moving or changing the use of a building does; demolition permits come from the city or county. One exception matters: a single-family home needs a permit only where the city or county has passed an ordinance requiring one. Electrical, plumbing and heating and air work carry their own permits and their own state licences, and the city or county’s zoning and planning approvals sit outside the building code entirely — a municipality may not add building requirements, but it may and does regulate use, setbacks and site development.

Plan review, local programmes and the state’s role

Kentucky splits plan review between the state and the locality by the size and type of building. The Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction’s Division of Building Code Enforcement reviews plans and inspects the larger and higher-risk buildings: buildings for more than 100 people, buildings over three storeys or 20,000 square feet, and all schools, hospitals, care homes, high-hazard and state-owned buildings. The local programme reviews and inspects smaller buildings, and a city or county can take on more only if the department grants it expanded jurisdiction. Where there is no local programme, the state handles every building except homes. Homes are local: the state does not review or inspect single-family homes. A local government running an inspection programme must provide at least one Kentucky Certified Building Inspector and at least one certified electrical inspector, reporting them to the department. Zoning approval, planning commission review and site development sit with the city or county and run ahead of the permit.

Kentucky issues no statewide general contractor licence. The Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction licenses the specialty trades — electrical contractors and electricians, master and journeyman plumbers, heating and air conditioning contractors, boiler contractors and fire sprinkler contractors — and it certifies fire alarm inspectors and the building inspectors themselves. Those licences are valid across the Commonwealth. General contracting is regulated locally instead: a city or county may require its own contractor licence or registration, so check each one. Cities and counties may not add their own licence for electricians, though. The local requirement, if there is one, is the credential to confirm before a permit is pulled, alongside the state trade licences.

The trades are permitted separately from the building permit and carried out by contractors holding the state licences the Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction issues. State law lets a homeowner do their own electrical and heating and air work without the trade licence, though a permit is still needed; there is no such exemption for plumbing.