York County, VA Building Safety: Elevator Maintenance (2026)

County Code § 7.1-8(g)(1) makes the recurring permit a facility owner's responsibility, not a one-time installer's task: the owner or operator must obtain the annual operating permit, pay the fee, and arrange for a certified individual to run the inspection with a County inspector present, then submit the inspection report to the building code official within 30 days. The building code official may accept an approved third-party agency or another local certified elevator inspector to witness testing instead of doing it in-house. Separately, installing new equipment triggers its own permit: § 7.1-8(e)(4) sets a $220 fee for each new commercial elevator, dumbwaiter, moving stair, manlift or hoisting/conveying unit, while § 7.1-8(e)(5) sets a $90 fee for a residential elevator or platform lift, with the same certified-inspector-plus-County-inspector process.

The exemption for one- and two-family dwellings only removes the recurring annual/maintenance-cycle permit; it does not remove the initial installation permit. Because the ordinance folds the annual permit and the multi-year VUSBC maintenance cycle into one fee schedule, a building with a single freight elevator can expect two $90 charges on different clocks: one every year, one every three or five years depending on equipment class.