A little progress this week. The city has issued me a demolition permit for the Killarney house.  

While useful, what I actually need to get, a basement permit, is hung up somewhere in the black box downtown as the city is late issuing the grade slip.  I'll be continuing efforts to get the rest of it untangled otherwise I will be facing some real delays and monetary damage.  Strangely enough someone I spoke to at city hall basically admitted they screwed up.  I asked for $2000 rebate on my permit fees as compensation for the city error and she laughed.  Not likely to happen. 

This issue of city responsibility for its mistakes is interesting.  I've had city staff threaten me with a $10k fine for putting a rut in a poorly graded alley, and I've been fined for not having paperwork at an inspection despite that document being almost impossible to produce.  The city is very eager to impose monetary damages on a builder, but immune to compensating the builder for its mistakes. 

this isn't actually a building permit it is a demo permit.  It will be a miracle if I can get a partial permit this week on the duplex project.