Zoning approval, permits and who inspects what
Chesterfield is one of the municipalities that does not run its own building inspectors. It contracts that function to St. Louis County, and it adds a Municipal Zoning Approval step of its own in front of it. Two desks, not one.
- Sheet
- A05
- Subject
- Zoning approval, permits, licensing
- For
- A homeowner about to sign
- Trade
- Roof replacement
The two step arrangement
A great many St. Louis County municipalities sit somewhere on a spectrum between running a full building department and having none at all. Chesterfield sits in the middle: building inspection is contracted out to the St. Louis County Department of Public Works, while the city retains zoning authority over what happens on the property. The practical effect is a Municipal Zoning Approval step that comes first, confirming that what is proposed is consistent with the zoning on that lot, followed by the county's own permit and inspection process where a permit is required at all.
For a straightforward like for like shingle replacement this is usually not onerous. It becomes material the moment the job stops being straightforward: a change of roofing material, a slope that is shallower than a shingle roof is rated for, a structural change, or work bundled in alongside the roof. That is exactly the point at which a crew in a hurry will tell you it is not needed.
Verify it yourself
This sheet deliberately prints no phone number for the county or the city other than the Keys number, because a second number on a roofer's page is a place for a lead to leak. Look up the St. Louis County Department of Public Works building division and Chesterfield city hall directly, from their own sites, and confirm the current requirement for your address. Requirements change and a website is not an authority.
The St. Louis County baseline
| Situation | Permit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Like for like asphalt, slope 4:12 or steeper | Not required | Treated as ordinary maintenance and replacement of the same system. |
| Slope shallower than 4:12 | Required | Below that pitch a shingle roof is outside its rated application and the assembly is a different question. |
| More than a quarter of the decking replaced | Required | At that point it stops being surface work and starts being structural. |
| Change of roofing material | Required | Different weight, different fastening, different assembly. |
Two of those thresholds are worth holding onto, because they interact. If a roof turns out to need extensive decking replacement, a job that started outside the permit regime can move inside it partway through. A contractor who has been honest with you about the decking unit price up front, as sheet A04 sets out, is also a contractor who has thought about that boundary before the tear off starts.
Missouri does not licence roofers
This surprises people and it should be said flatly. There is no Missouri state roofing licence. Legislation to create one has been filed and has failed repeatedly: SB 1022 in 2016, SB 153 in 2019 and SB 326 in 2021 all failed to become law. Anybody citing SB 326 at you as a requirement is citing a bill that never passed.
What does exist is municipal contractor registration, and it varies enormously across this metro. Ballwin and Kirkwood, to take two neighbours, run their own contractor licensing. Others do not. This means that the phrase "licensed roofer" carries no single verifiable meaning in Missouri, which in turn means that the things you actually can verify matter more:
- A certificate of insurance sent directly from the insurer or the agent, not a photocopy handed to you by the salesman. General liability and workers compensation both.
- The business name on the contract matching the business name on the insurance certificate and on the vehicle. Three different names is a structure built for disappearing.
- A physical address that is a place rather than a mailbox.
- Whether the company is registered in the municipalities where it says it works, in the ones that require it.
Where a permit is required, the contractor should pull it. If a contractor asks the homeowner to pull it as an owner instead, ask why. Occasionally there is a legitimate reason. More often it moves the liability and the record from the company onto you, and it is a sign the company would rather not be named on a municipal document.