Do you need a permit to connect a building to the Mesa sewer? City Code 8-4-8

Six subsections cover the connection:

• (A) Permit to touch the sewer. No authorized person may connect to, open into, use, alter or disturb a public sewer or its appurtenances without a written permit from Development Services.
• (B) Plumbing permit first. Each applicant for a building connection "shall obtain a valid plumbing permit" from the city as a prerequisite for approval. Applications for connections the city builds must come with the current fee.
• (C) City approval. The number, location, manner of connection and size of every building connection are subject to the Development Services Manager's approval.
• (D) Records. The city keeps a record of each connection, its purpose and the owner or agent.
• (E) Owner maintains. The property owner is responsible for cleaning, unstopping, maintenance and repair of the building connection piping "from the owner's home or building to the public sewer."
• (F) Broken section in the street. Where clearing a stoppage requires repair or replacement of a damaged section located off-property in a street or alley, the Water Resources Department makes the repair or replacement.

• Building connection. The pipe from a building to the public sewer. The text does not use "lateral," but this is the same line most people mean.
• Public sewer. The city main and its appurtenances, such as manholes.
• Off-property. Located outside the owner's lot, in the street or an alley.

Anyone connecting a new building, moving a connection, tapping the main or replacing a building sewer that reaches it. Subsection (F) has no size or use limit in its text, so it reads as covering commercial owners as well. It does not make the city responsible for the on-property pipe, and it does not turn a stoppage inside the building into a city job.

A new restaurant. The plumber pulls the plumbing permit for the building, and the sewer connection is approved as part of that process. The connection also needs the grease interceptor plan reviewed under Mesa's interceptor rules.

A stoppage under the alley. A camera finds a collapsed section in the alley, past the property line. Under (F), the city repairs that section, and the owner is still responsible up to the boundary.

The edge case. A backup turns out to be a belly in the on-property pipe that meets a break just inside the alley. The two sections have two responsible parties, so both should be documented before work starts.

1. 1Locate the connection and confirm where the property line sits.
2. 2Pull the plumbing permit for the building, then request the written sewer connection permit from Development Services. Permit Services: 480-644-4273.
3. 3Ask for approval of the connection's number, location and size before excavating.
4. 4If a stoppage traces to a broken section in a street or alley, report it to Water Resources rather than repairing it yourself.
5. 5Budget for the capacity and impact fees that apply to a new connection.

• "A plumber can tap the main if the customer approves." A written permit from Development Services comes first.
• "The city owns everything past the wall." The owner maintains the pipe to the public sewer, apart from the off-property repair in (F).
• "Chandler's single-family limit applies." Mesa's (F) does not carry that limit in its text.
• "The permit fee is on this page." It is in the city's fee schedule.