Removing curb for driveway

It's called a curb cut, and I don't remember it ever being a big deal, unless perhaps no one else in the neighborhood has a driveway...

Fees if there are any, I don't know about. Presumeably there is some fee, as they, again presumeably, come out and check the point of cut, re distance from this and that utility/street tree.

Chai, Getting caught doing contrution without a permit is a hefty fine. We do it all the time but only when we are not in plain veiw. Check if you need a permit and what the fine is at city hall. I don't think the curb is your property, I think it is city property

Well, cities have design requirements for driveway aprons...
(the ones I know, anyway).


Amigo, my peach, how are you, long time no see! We've missed yourself...

Hi! ossbuco. How is it you know more about constrution then me and that's whae I do for a living?

Odds are all you gotta do is get a permit, and, of course, make sure your reconstruction conforms to all applicable code. One caveat - bustin' up and gettin' rid of any appreciable amount of concrete can be real involvin' ... get set for some entertainment.

Oh, and be sure to call Digger's Hotline before you do anything - utility companies have no sense of humor when it comes to repairing torn up lines.

The cracked and crumbled concrete is do to either lack of rebar, pouring on unlevel ground or a poor concrete mix. All thes thing are easily avoided. The code is very simple for this. The cost and requirments of the permit that is the real question.

And if concrete is rebarless, it can often be jacked up and used to make patios, walkways, or stacked concrete batter walls - usually best from old pathways. You use the concrete pieces rather like flagstones.

(but I don't think Chai Tea has extra concrete to jack up.)

Amigo, I'm a landscape architect, whooo-hoo. Not as involved in construction end as my old business partner, a landscape contractor, or my former boss who was a hands on guy for major housing tracts. I know some things, don't know others, and try to be straight about which.

I'm a woman who happens to be pretty good at design, thank you, and not bad at detailing, grading, drainage, and so on. But I started all this at forty and ain't never going to be perfect. Am semi-retired, in that I don't think I'll open a new office here in Albuquerque, but may change my mind... I'll be 65 soon. They sure as hell need help here. My energy for the fray is sort of shot, and I'd rather paint paintings. But I need money.... so we'll see. Maybe I'll make up some cards as a consultant..
haven't gotten my license in New Mexico yet (money, honey), but still licensed in CA.

Meantime, I'm trying to understand the boundaries for the local clay soils, or, sands, and catch up on local building materials and plants..

Agree on the Diggers Hotline. Most contractors know that, but homeowners and non-contractors (I can do This For You) don't always.

Well.....yeah.....that's why I was askin' if anyone new the procedure.

Like I said, I know it involves going through the city....just wondering if anyone knew what was involved.

We just finished remodeling our house, which took about 2 years...I've had permits coming out the wazoo.

More what I meant was, once you do all the city stuff, can you remove the curb yourself and just have it inspected for being in code, or, does the city have to come out and remove it.

Osso...Driveway Apron...THAT's the term I was looking for, not entryway.
Yes, everyone has driveways. Our side of the street has a sidewalk, the other side doesn't. We must live on the "rich" side of the street.

My husbands been in construction for about 45 years, so the actual building/laying is not an issue.
I was showing him a design this morning I had come up with (with the remodel our entire front yard needs to be redone, it's totally wrecked.

His comment at that moment was an off the cuff, first cup of coffee in the morning "yeah, we'll have to see if that's feasible" I've learned after many years with him which hills I'm willing to die on, and with him still working on a lot of other stuff on the property, I know not to have long discussion about a driveway that won't happen for months down the line. Ya-knowhatImean?

osso - I didn't know that's what you did...let me see if I can host a picture of kinda what I had in mind, and get your opinion.

This kind of thing depends very much on the municipality.

In Toronto, you'd have to first try to get approval for a driveway that was wider than normal (which would likely be denied in the current city hall mood). If you got the permit to widen the driveway (or put in any driveway), you'd then have to wait until the city had a crew coming into the area which handles the curb cuts. No one else is allowed to do them. You can do your driveway work (once you've managed to get the permit), up to three days in advance of when the city crew is scheduled to be working in your area/zone.

In my part of the city, illegal curb cuts can mean serious doo-doo, and big fines.

One of the particular issues in my part of town is that if you want to put in a driveway/expand a driveway, you have to put in additional landscaping - and show the plans in advance. They'll also be by to check that your landscaping is being maintained - an an at least annual basis. Toronto bylaw people don't take kindly to any reduction in green space - so they make it A PROCESS.

Some jurisdictions are much more amenable to helping you make changes on your property.

Chai, my general point of view is to have the yard, such as it is, be mostly in front of the house.. that's my bias, preferably with a separate path to the front door. In any case, I want, most of all, for people to be able to detect where the front door is. (I'm not a feng shui person, and this can come into play in design.)

I try to diminish the impact of "snout house" - two or three or more car garage in front of house looking from the street - and this is often impossible. I've gotten less wildly against this over time, but it's still my bias.

Call your city engineering department. This is a simple one for them to answer.

Austin has rules about how much impermeable ground cover you can put down. The amount varies depending on whether you're in an aquifer recharge zone.


The developer puts down the curbs, not the city, so I expect you're OK doing the work yourself so long as you have a permit.

Well, first, I'd look up what your city has to say about all this online.
Then I'd visit Building and Safety or Planning, just asking, assuming you need to know more.

Presumably a with-it local licensed contractor knows, but if you're not going to hire one, it's difficult to ask folks to spend time to come out and help solve your problem sans any chance of hiring. Working up a bid is time consuming, at least sometimes, and drives contractors crazy if the request is not serious.

If so, the driveway can be made of permeable pavers. This is very true of an area I used to work in, Santa Monica. Hardly any city is tougher than Santa Monica.

Me, I'd just go and ask for their regulations, and mention possible driveways.

Phone questions work a lot of the time, and there is some appeal to the anonymity. Still, if you don't want to be sneaky on this (dumb), straightforward asking at the desk is dealing with the horse's mouth. Get them to write stuff down, or you write it, or have them hand you a sheet of criteria.

I don't know if the desk is under engineering or building and safety or planning... depends on the city.

ok - having problems posting the actual jpeg....click on this link and see if you can get it.


yes...yes...yes....parados, as I mentioned to amigo....I know I have to call the city. Again, I was trying to feel out if anyone's done this and if it was a hassle. City Hall is not open Saturday, and I was just musing and wondering until they open Monday morning, which I fully intend to do.

anyway...osso...re being able to see the house, yes that's important. The actual house is oh, maybe 4 feet off the ground. As you can see from the jpeg, There's going to be 3 sets of stairs leading down from a landing. We already have the one set built that goes directly down to the street. Behind the stairs is a covered porch that runs the width of the house. The width of the house runs from the 1-2' wall on the left of the picture, to the original driveway on the right of the picture.

Because of the height of the house, my low profile car will not block anything. My husband already parks his work van in the driveway, which causes me to have to park on the street in front of the house every day. Something I really don't like doing. However, our comings and goings are usually not in sync with each other, and the having to move each others vehicles to get out is not worth the hassle, so I park on the street.

As important as having someplace to park, is the other issue I've been pondering of taking up space.

I suppose this is going to give some people angina, but I have ABSOLUTLEY NO INTEREST in gardening. Looking at the attached jpeg, the few raised planters for low/no maintainance native plants like lantana, or flowers you can't kill, like periwinkle, plus the addition of a tree to replace the one we had to cut down (it was pretty much dead) is a far as I'm willing to go.

To me, it seemed like taking up a bunch of space with a drive way, putting some festive planters around, and a small sitting area for when it's not 500 degrees out seems ideal.

Since I first started pondering landscaping last year, it's fully been my intent to have no grass for mowing. I read up on planting native plants, rock gardens, going to local plant shows, etc. You name it, I read it or went there. Then, I finally said to myself...."Who are you kidding Chai, you HATE that kind of stuff" Truthfully, and thinking practically, my husband is 12 years older than me, with health issues, and I'm not the type of person to get out there and mow if I'm a widow.

sorry folks, just not gonna happen.

Anyway, when I was scoping out the neighborhood on a walk this morning, I saw how some houses did have driveways where I wouldn't typically think one would be. Much of that has to do with so much building going on, space is precious.

I don't know what I'd have around the tree/patio/sitting area, but that's not really an issue, I'd come up with something attractive.

what do you think the those rudimentary plans osso?

Haven't looked at your post yet, Chai, but thinking... maybe the city requires x amount of landscape space, and wouldn't accept permeable pavers over x amount of footage. Reallly, you need to check all that out.

Okay, back to look at your post, which I just saw a minute ago.

Interesting DrewDad. I did not know that about the impermeable ground cover. I thing I'm pretty safe with that though, looking at what some other people have done.

One house I passed had (which I thought was really ugly because it was a ground level house, a very small front yard with this big honking circular driveway in front of it....yuck. All they had was some shrubs in the front and in the little area of ground not covered by the driveway they had some kind of deserty crap planted. Thinking about it, I'd say 80-85% of there front was covered by the drive. Even I'm not that bad.

OH yeah, the developer. Is that why when you go for a walk you'll see one of the sidewalk plates stamped with something that says "Jason Farquar 1968"?

Jeez, then how do people go about having sidewalks replaced down an entire street? My neighborhood nice, but the old trees have buckled some parts of the sidewalks, etc.

osso...Can you give me an example of a permeable paver?

I'm way unclear on where backup space is, how you get from here to there... two separate driveways to go forth and back up in? I'm not sure I've ever seen that. Would be surprised if they allow it.

OK, I do have a feeling, I don't like it.

Lemme back up and stare at it again.