Demolition in El Paso Is Permitted Work, From One Wall to a Whole Structure

For a house, and for any wall or beam that carries load, yes. Demolition in the City of El Paso, including removing any load-bearing member, is permitted work. The application needs the demolition plan, a hazardous material report, and proof that utilities are disconnected, and historic properties go to the Historic Landmark Commission first (El Paso Municipal Code 18.02.108 and 20.20.080).

The permit is required before the demolition or partial demolition of a single family home, duplex, triplex, quadruplex or commercial building (EPMC 18.02.108.1(B)). Level I covers every house type on that list and commercial buildings under 5,000 square feet of gross floor area being demolished; larger commercial demolitions are Level II and Level III. For a complete or an interior demolition the application list is specific, and the table shows each item and who usually supplies it.

A detached garage, a shed and a wall that carries no load are not named one by one. The code's definition is broad, reaching the alteration or wrecking of any structure, and the City's general permit rule lists demolishing a building or structure among the work that needs a permit where the building codes regulate it (EPMC 18.02.105.1). How those words apply to a specific garage, shed or partition is the City's decision for the address. The permits guide covers what the City exempts when a shed is built, which is a different question from taking one down. The One Stop Shop answers at 915-212-0104, and the paid Feasibility Audit confirms the permit path before a demolition date is set. Inside a kitchen or bath remodel, the tear-out is part of the remodel's written scope, and whether the City handles it under the remodel permit or a separate demolition permit is settled the same way.

A dumpster or storage container kept on the property more than 7 days, or placed on a City street at all, needs its own City permit, which the El Paso permits guide covers. These are City of El Paso rules; an address in another town or in the unincorporated county answers to its own permitting authority, and the permits guide explains which one.

Yes, by an EPA-certified renovation firm, and Sage is not one. EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule covers paid work that disturbs paint in homes and child-occupied facilities built before 1978, it states that window replacement and demolition of painted surfaces are always covered regardless of square footage, and firms cannot advertise or perform covered work in those buildings without firm certification. Because of that, Sage takes on demolition of painted surfaces only in homes built in 1978 or later. The same line applies to a child-occupied facility built before 1978, such as a day care or preschool: its painted surfaces are outside the work Sage takes on.

Homes built before 1978 are presumed to contain lead-based paint, and any paid work that disturbs more than 6 square feet of paint per room inside, or 20 square feet outside, must be done by an EPA-certified firm. Tell us the year your home was built when you send photos, so the scope is set correctly from the first call.

The always-covered line matters most in demolition, because demolition never fits the small-job exception. One painted wall coming out of a kitchen, a painted ceiling, painted cabinets and trim, a painted door or a painted stucco wall on a rear addition are all demolition of painted surfaces. The rule is about paint, so a bare concrete driveway that carries none is a different question from the painted wall beside it. EPA also lists residential rental property owners and managers, general contractors and special trade contractors among the firms the rule covers, so it reaches rental properties as well as owner-occupied homes.

The painting page explains the rest of the rule: what presumed means, how a certified inspector's or renovator's test result can change it, and how to check a firm's certification. Housing that receives HUD assistance, including Section 8, also falls under HUD's own lead rule (24 CFR Part 35), with lower interior limits than the RRP figures above, which the Section 8 repairs page covers.

The serving utilities and the licensed trades do, before any demolition starts, and the City asks for proof: an application for a complete or an interior demolition includes proof of utility disconnections (EPMC 18.02.108.1(E)(3)(e)). Inside the property line, capping a gas, water or sewer line is licensed plumbing work and making circuits safe is licensed electrical work (EPMC 18.02.104.6), each performed under that trade's own license and permits, on a schedule Sage coordinates.

Federal OSHA rules set the same order for demolition work. Before demolition starts, all electric, gas, water, steam, sewer and other service lines are to be shut off, capped or otherwise controlled outside the building line, with the utility company notified in advance, and before workers start, a competent person surveys the structure's framing, floors and walls for the possibility of an unplanned collapse and keeps written evidence that the survey was done (29 CFR 1926.850(a), (c)).

For an interior demolition in a house that stays lived in, the question narrows to the rooms coming out: the circuits and lines that serve them are made safe first, and the rest of the house stays on. That is why the Feasibility Audit notes where each service can be seen entering and which visible fixtures, outlets and lines sit in the rooms coming out before a date is set. A line found inside a wall once demolition opens it stops work at that spot until its licensed trade has looked at it.

At least 60 days from the date a complete application is filed, and it can take longer. On a designated historic landmark, or any property with an H overlay individually or as part of a historic district, the Historic Landmark Commission must delay a proposed demolition for at least sixty days from the submission of a completed application (EPMC 20.20.120(A); 20.20.020(23), (25)). Demolition there needs both a certificate of demolition from the Commission and a demolition permit from the City (EPMC 20.20.080(A); 20.20.140(B)), and the permit does not issue until the Commission has approved the demolition (EPMC 18.02.108.1(F)(1)).

The clock starts only when the application is complete, and completeness starts before filing. The applicant sends written notice of the proposed application to the Mayor and City Council, the County Historical Commission and, where the property lies inside a recognized neighborhood association's boundary, that association, and includes proof of delivery with the application; without it, the application is not accepted as complete (EPMC 20.20.120(F)). The City's Certificate of Demolition application also asks for a scaled plot plan showing the existing structures, their square footage, the area to be demolished and elevations of what is coming down, along with proof of ownership and color photographs of current conditions.

In the historic chapter, demolition means any act that destroys, razes or permanently impairs the structural integrity of a structure in whole or in part (EPMC 20.20.020(17)), and an application covers removal of any portion of a landmark or H-overlay property (20.20.120(A)). Taking off a rear porch or an old addition goes through the same process as taking down the house. The Commission's certificate and the City's demolition permit are two separate approvals, and both come before work starts. Which properties carry the overlay, and what else the Commission reviews, is on the whole-home page.

A lot ready for new construction. When demolition is complete, El Paso's code requires the site cleared of rubbish, brush, weeds and other debris and left free of ponds or ponding areas, with footings, foundations, basement and surface slabs, septic tanks, wells, cesspools and cisterns completely removed, along with all underground utilities and vaults, and clean fill used to bring the lot back to an elevation consistent with the lots and public improvements around it (EPMC 18.02.108.1(G)(2) - (3), (H)(1)). The code also has the contractor return any public improvement the work touched, such as a sidewalk or curb, to its original or an improved condition (18.02.108.1(H)(2)), and work in the City right of way takes its own permit, covered under concrete removal below.

Part of that list falls outside Sage's demolition. A buried utility line found on the lot is taken out of service by the serving utility or its licensed trade, and a septic system or a well follows the state's own rules: Texas has the owner abandon a septic tank, with the wastewater removed by a TCEQ-registered waste transporter (30 TAC 285.36), and has the landowner get an unused well plugged or capped under state standards (Texas Occupations Code 1901.255).

The old foundation can stay only under conditions. The code lets footings, foundations and basement walls remain when the site is secured with fencing, plans sealed by a design professional are submitted with the new construction that reuses them, those plans include an engineer's analysis showing the foundations are structurally adequate for the new structure, and an engineer's inspection report shows the demolition did not disturb or impair them (18.02.108.1(G)(3) and (H)(1), exceptions). That makes reuse a decision for the start of the project, which is why the Feasibility Audit raises it before anything is broken.

While the work is underway, the same section says no wall, chimney or other structural part may be left at the end of a shift in a condition where wind, vibration or anything else could bring it down, and that blocking a walkway, street or alley is arranged with the City departments involved (18.02.108.1(G)(1), (4)). Those rules shape the schedule: a structure comes down in a sequence that leaves it stable every evening, not simply in the fastest order.

Sage takes it on as a scoped demolition item on the property, either on its own or as the first phase of a new driveway, patio or yard, and the removal is planned from the line where the concrete you keep begins. A clean saw-cut edge at a joint, the garage slab or the walk is what lets new work meet old work without a ragged seam, so that line is drawn in the written scope before anything is broken.

The public part of a driveway follows City rules. Work on the approach, curb or sidewalk in the City right of way needs a City permit, and so does changing a driveway's dimensions; the concrete driveways page covers both (EPMC 13.04.010, 13.12.070). Who holds the right-of-way permit for the approach, curb or sidewalk is confirmed at the paid Feasibility Audit. A driveway that is taken out and not replaced raises one more rule. The City treats a driveway as abandoned when the property has sat vacant and unused for at least six months, or when buildings or other structures are placed so a vehicle cannot pass completely onto the property (EPMC 13.12.010(B)). For an abandoned driveway, the traffic engineer may order the curb or sidewalk replaced to close it, with written notice to the owner, who does that work at the owner's cost; if the work has not started within thirty days, the City may do it and assess the cost to the property (EPMC 13.12.190). A driveway that ends at a new wall or planter can meet that definition, so the curb gets decided in the plan rather than after a notice.

What sits under the slab is the other unknown. It may be a compacted base, caliche or loose fill, and a utility sleeve or a line can run under any of them; a line found there belongs to its licensed trade, and the ground a new slab needs is covered on the concrete page. If the slab belongs to a full demolition, the City's end-of-demolition rule above applies to it too, and if the concrete carries paint in a home built before 1978, the lead rule applies to that part, and that part is outside the work Sage takes on. What replaces it, whether a new driveway, pavers, artificial turf or xeriscape, decides how the break-out is planned, and if the plan is to park on gravel afterward, the City's parking-surface rules on the concrete page come first.