Start-up meeting and start-up notice
Start-up meeting
The building permit may state the need for a start-up meeting to fulfill the obligation of care in construction. A start-up meeting is typically required with projects involving detached houses and larger buildings.
The start-up meeting should be attended by at least the builder or their representative, the building’s main designer and the site manager in charge.
At the meeting, the obligations given to the builder in the permit are noted and recorded in the minutes. The key parties in project planning and construction work, the people in charge of each work phase, the people conducting inspections during the work, and other measures for ensuring the quality of the construction are also identified and documented.
The minutes from the meeting serve as a written commitment on the explanations and actions with which the builder fulfills their duty of care.
Start-up notice
Unless the official who granted the permit has given permission, the actual construction work can be started only after the permit is legally binding. This means that it can no longer be appealed or changed.
Before starting construction, a start-up notice has to be submitted to the building supervision. The site manager in charge must also be approved before the work can begin.
In this context, starting construction work means starting to work on the building’s foundation. In repair and alteration work that requires a permit, the work starts when the dismantling or construction of structures or building components begins.
Preparatory actions, such as excavation and blasting, filling, and cutting down trees don’t need a separate permit in addition to the building permit.
Preparatory actions can be started before the permit becomes legally binding, if the building supervision official has determined it to have minimal impact. However, even the preparatory actions require a start-up notice and the approval of the site manager in charge.
A separate landscape permit may be needed when starting preparatory actions before the permit is granted. Verify this with the building supervision before going forward with anything.