Published
One page, nineteen checkboxes, and a snow-load sentence: the City of Ashton’s own building-permit application, read field by field.
One page, and the city wrote it itself
Everything else this site walks through is county paperwork — the application packet, the checklist, the fee schedule’s oddities on the 2005 fee schedule page. The City of Ashton also publishes a building-permit application of its own: a single page, offered as a PDF on the city’s planning-and-zoning page, and printable by anyone. This page walks it field by field, because a form tells you what an office actually wants to know — and this one tells you more than its size suggests. The instruction printed at the bottom:
Please submit this form to City of Ashton, 714 Main Street
— City of Ashton Building Permit Application (city-published PDF, cityofashton.com/planning-and-zoning). Retrieved 15 September 2026
Two honest notes before the walk-through. First, the PDF’s own file properties date it to November 5, 2008 — the form is old enough that its fee math still labels itself “UBC Valuation,” a detail worth knowing rather than hiding. Second, the form prints no dollar amounts anywhere: every fee field is blank, waiting for the office to fill it. What follows is everything the form itself says, read today.
The checkbox grid: nineteen named options and a blank line
The top half of the form is a grid of checkboxes, and the form offers a Commercial and a Residential box before anything else. Below them the grid runs four rows by five columns — nineteen named labels plus one blank write-in slot. The nineteen, exactly as printed:
| Label as printed | What it records |
|---|---|
| New Building · Addition · Remodel · Carport/Garage · Patio Deck | The scale of the work |
| Curb & Gutter · Curb Cut · Water Tap · Sewer Tap | Street and utility connections |
| Occup. Permit · Change of Use | How the building will be used — its before-and-after pair, Prior Use and Proposed Use, appears below the grid as fill-in fields, not checkboxes |
| Site Plan · Roof Structure · Foundation · Floor Structure · Floor Plan · Typical Const. · Specifications · Plan Analysis | Which plans are submitted with it |
| _______________ | One blank write-in line for anything the grid does not name |
Read that grid the way the office reads it: the right-hand column is a plan-set inventory. A residential new build that ticks New Building and then Site Plan, Foundation, Floor Structure and Roof Structure has just told the city its structural story in four ticks — the same story the county’s checklist asks for in paragraphs on the county permit path.
The identity block: who is on the hook, in writing
Under the grid the form collects names, and each row has a job:
- Owner, Description of Work, Address, Phone. The applicant’s anchor — and the description field is the one to write slowly, because it is the sentence the whole file hangs on.
- Contractor, Contractor #, Phone. The form asks for the contractor’s registration number, not just a name — the same number this site’s builder table verifies against the public register for every firm it lists.
- Architect, Phone. Who drew it, if anyone.
- Prior Use and Proposed Use. The before-and-after pair that matters for anything involving a change of use.
- Project Address, then Legal Lot, Legal Block, Legal Sub. The form wants the legal description — the lot, block and subdivision exactly as recorded — which is the same identifier the plat itself carries, covered on the page about what the plat says.
The legal-description line is the one most often filled in wrong from memory. It comes off the recorded plat, not off a mailing address, and the county’s landowner-signature rule — who pulls the permit, and what changes either way — meets this form at exactly that line: the name in the Owner box has to be entitled to sign for the lot in it.
The numbers block: value, floors, and a square-footage grid
The form then asks the applicant for numbers, and only one of them is about money:
| Field | What the form wants |
|---|---|
| Estimated Value | The applicant’s number for the project — the input the fee math later feeds on |
| No Floors | How many levels the building has |
| Main / 2nd / Basement sf | Finished-area square footage by level |
| Garage / Carport / Deck / Patio sf | The attached spaces, priced separately from living area |
| One blank sf line | Anything the grid does not name |
The pattern is the same one the county’s 2005 fee ordinance uses — valuation by construction type, square footage by category — so the applicant’s squares are not trivia: they are the raw material of the permit fee. Fill them consistently with the plan set, because the office will.
The sentence you sign above
Between the numbers and the signature lines sits the form’s only paragraph of prose, and it is a representation — a signed statement, not a formality:
The applicant represents that all statements are a true description of the proposed uses and/or buildings and that all laws governing this project will be complied with and provision made to allow inspections by city or state representatives and that the building(s) will not be occupied or used without specific authorization of the Building and/or Fire Department. Remember the snow load for Ashton is 70 lbs.
— City of Ashton Building Permit Application, applicant representation. Retrieved 15 September 2026
Three things live in that paragraph. You are representing the statements as true; you are committing to inspections by city or state representatives; and you are accepting that occupancy waits on authorization. And then, appended to the end of a legal paragraph, the form’s one line of design guidance: a printed snow load of 70 lbs. That sentence is quoted exactly as the form prints it — the form writes “lbs,” not “pounds per square foot.” The snow-load figures in force around Ashton, including two official documents that print different ones, are carried on this site’s snow-load pages — start with the county’s 90 PSF district figure and the university study that says 103 — and the disagreement deserves more than a sentence here, so it gets its own treatment there.
The bottom half: the part that is not yours
A line across the form reads “Information below this line is to be completed by the building department” — and everything under it shows how the office processes what you handed over:
- Construction Type, Occupancy, Zoning, Map, Special Provisions. The office’s classification row — including the zoning call, which is the city’s to make, not the applicant’s.
- Three fee-math lines. Each reads “Code ___ s.f. ___ x ___ = $___”: a code, a square footage, a rate, a product. This is valuation-based fee arithmetic done on the face of the form.
- “Total UBC Valuation= $___” — the sum line. UBC is the Uniform Building Code, the code family this label descends from; the county’s current path works from the 2018 International family, which is one more reason the 2008 file date matters.
- Two fee columns. Public Works Fees (Water, Public Works, Curb Cut Streets, Other) and Building Department Fees (Building Permit, Plan Review, Invest Fee, Other), each with Subtotal, Less Deposit, and Total Due lines.
- Approvals. “Building Permit Approved By” and a Date — plus, at the top of the form, Submitted By, Received By, and Date/Time lines for both sides of the counter.
Every dollar field is blank. The form tells you the shape of what you will pay — two fee columns, a deposit already credited against something, a valuation the office computes itself — but the amounts come from the office, on the day. Ask for the completed form back with the file; it is the only record of how the number was built. What the county side of that conversation looks like — where the county publishes amounts and where it does not — is on what a Fremont County building permit costs.
Which counter takes this form?
The existence of a city form raises the same question the city’s own code library raises, and this page answers it the same honest way: the form does not say which lots it governs, and nothing on it settles jurisdiction. Whether a given parcel’s application runs through the city or the county is a question to put to both offices in writing, before plans are drawn — framed on the page about the city’s own code. What is verifiable today is that two offices publish two applications for the same corner of the county, and the county’s is the one walked on the permit-path page linked above.
Before you fill it in
- Confirm which office takes your application — city hall or the county building department — before filling in anything, and get the answer in writing. The wrong form is a restart, not an edit.
- Pull the legal description off the recorded plat for the Legal Lot / Block / Sub line. Do not work from memory or from the mailing address.
- Write the Description of Work as one careful sentence — it is the representation everything else refers back to.
- Have the contractor’s registration number ready; the form asks for it by its own label, Contractor #.
- Fill the square-footage grid from the plan set, not from a wish — and know your Estimated Value feeds the fee arithmetic below the line.
- Read the representation paragraph before signing, including its snow-load sentence — and put the snow-load question to whoever will hold the permit, in writing, before a roof is designed. The figures and their disagreement are laid out on this site’s snow-load pages; this site takes that kind of question at (208) 656-1516.
Common questions
Where do I get the City of Ashton building-permit application?
The city publishes it as a one-page PDF on its own website, on the planning-and-zoning page at cityofashton.com/planning-and-zoning. The form's printed instruction says to submit it to City of Ashton, 714 Main Street. Verified against the PDF on 15 September 2026.
What does the city's building-permit application ask for?
A Commercial or Residential designation; a checkbox grid of nineteen named options covering work type, utility connections, occupancy changes, and which plans are submitted; owner, contractor and architect identities with a Contractor # field; prior and proposed use; the project address with legal lot, block and subdivision; and an estimated value with a square-footage grid by level and attached space.
Does the city's form print a snow load?
Yes. The representation paragraph ends with the sentence 'Remember the snow load for Ashton is 70 lbs.' — quoted exactly; the form writes lbs, not pounds per square foot. The snow-load figures in force around Ashton, and the disagreement between two official documents, are covered on this site's snow-load pages.
Why does the form ask for a contractor number?
The form has a field labeled Contractor # beside the contractor's name and phone — the registration number issued through Idaho's contractor registration system. It lets the office tie the file to a registered entity; this site's builder table verifies the same numbers against the public register for each firm it lists.
Who fills in the permit fees on the city form?
The building department. A line across the form says 'Information below this line is to be completed by the building department,' and under it the office classifies the project, computes a valuation through three code-times-square-footage lines, and totals fees in two columns — Public Works and Building Department. The form prints no dollar amounts itself.
What is 'Total UBC Valuation' on the form?
The label on the form's valuation sum line. UBC stands for the Uniform Building Code — the code family the label descends from. The PDF's file properties date the form to November 5, 2008, which is consistent with the label; the county's current permit path works from the 2018 International code family.
Is the city application the same as Fremont County's permit application?
No — they are separate documents from separate offices. The county's application packet is walked on this site's county permit-path page. Which office takes a given parcel's application is a jurisdiction question to settle in writing before plans are drawn; the form itself does not say which lots it governs.
How current is the city's application form?
The PDF's own file properties date it to November 5, 2008 — it is the current form on the city's website today, retrieved 15 September 2026, but it is an old document, and its fee math and code label reflect that. Ask the city whether anything on it has changed by practice; the honest check on any form is the office that receives it.
What should I ask before submitting the city's form?
Three things, in writing: which office takes the application for this lot, city or county; which snow-load figure the design must satisfy for this file; and what the completed fee section says once the office fills it in. The first two shape the plans; the third is the only record of how the fee was built.