Custom finish carpentry for Boca Raton homes

What the Boca Raton permit file asks for

Building permits inside city limits come from Boca Raton’s Development Services department. Applications, plan uploads, inspection requests and payments all run through Boca eHub, the city’s online permitting system. The city’s checklist for single-family additions and alterations sets the ground rules:

• Every contractor has to be registered with the city and current before pulling a permit. Owners acting as their own builder file an affidavit instead.
• Subcontractor applications are due before the permit is issued.
• A certified Notice of Commencement is required on building permits valued above $2,500.
• Product approvals or a Miami-Dade NOA go in the file for rated products such as exterior doors.

A job that mixes trim with anything structural, electrical or exterior is permitted work.

Old Floresta and Pearl City

Boca Raton has two designated historic districts, Old Floresta and Pearl City, plus individually designated historic sites. The city’s Certificate of Appropriateness checklist says a COA is required for any construction, alteration, repair or demolition of the exterior of a building there, down to walls, fences, light fixtures and steps. The Historic Preservation Board meets once a month, usually on the third Tuesday, and applications are due three weeks ahead.

The rule covers the outside of the house. A new entry door, porch ceiling or exterior railing in Old Floresta goes to the board with elevations and material samples. A paneled library inside is a building permit question.

Mizner’s Spanish houses and the woodwork they invite

Old Floresta began in October 1925, when Addison Mizner announced houses for his company’s executives and a New York contractor won the job to build 29 of his designs. The state historical marker describes the look that has lasted since: rough stucco walls, wrought iron balconies and barrel tile roofs. In 1990 it became the city’s first historic district.

If your house borrows that vocabulary, the wood inside usually carries the warmth:

• Pecky cypress or stained box beams across a living room (pecky cypress ceilings).
• Deep coffered grids in dining rooms and studies.
• Arched or heavy paneled entry doors with iron hardware (doors).
• A stained cap rail over scroll or square iron balusters (stairs and railings).

Entry doors without the HVHZ

Florida’s High Velocity Hurricane Zone covers Miami-Dade and Broward only, so Boca Raton sits just outside it. An exterior door is still not a casual purchase. Palm Beach County sets design wind speeds by building risk category, and its wind-borne debris region takes in land within a mile of the coast where the design speed reaches 130 mph, and anywhere it reaches 140 mph. The door you choose needs a product approval that covers your opening, and the approval goes in the permit file. We fit the door, its jambs and its casing to that approval.

The appearance board does not review houses

Boca’s Community Appearance Board reviews exterior alterations to buildings other than single-family homes, per the city. Outside the two historic districts, the approvals that shape a house project are the building permit and whatever your homeowners association requires.