Burlington, NC Building Safety: Building Permits (2026)

Section 7-4 requires anyone applying for a permit covering buildings, heating and air conditioning, plumbing, or electrical inspections to pay the city a fee set from time to time by the city council rather than a fixed amount printed in the code itself; the current figures live in the council's separately adopted fee schedule. That obligation reaches beyond the city limits: Section 7-3 extends Burlington's building construction and inspection enforcement into its extraterritorial jurisdiction under G.S. 160D-202, an arrangement the Alamance County Commissioners authorized on October 2, 1972, and shown on the city's official zoning map.

Section 7-5 backs the fee requirement with a penalty for jumping the gun: if work that needs a permit starts before the permit is obtained, the fee for that work is doubled, subject to a minimum set in the council's fee schedule. Paying the doubled or minimum fee does not let the builder off the hook; the section is explicit that payment does not relieve anyone from fully complying with the Code's requirements and the execution of the work, nor from any other penalty the Code prescribes, and the section applies to all work anywhere a permit is required, not just buildings.

The fee provision traces to Ordinance No. 72-86 in 1972, amended in 1979 and 1987, while the doubled-fee penalty rule traces to Ordinance No. 81-11 in 1981, amended in 1994 and 2009, before both were recodified in 2018. Extra inspection trips caused by a contractor's own errors carry their own escalating fee under Section 7-6, layered on top of the permit fee itself.