City of St. Johns building permits
VerifiedDepartment contacts, adopted codes, permit types, fees, and gotchas for City of St. Johns, Arizona.
Last verified 2026-07-19 · Source · Embed this page’s badge · Version history
Building department
- Address
- 70 E Commercial St (PO Box 455), St. Johns, AZ 85936
- Phone
- (928) 337-4517 (City Hall main line); Fax (928) 337-2195
- Office hours
- Not published on the City's official website as of 2026-07-19 — confirm directly with City Hall at (928) 337-4517.
- Website
- Official site
Codes adopted
Arizona has no statewide building code for non-state buildings; codes are adopted locally. According to the International Code Council, codes are adopted locally in Arizona and are predominantly the I-codes, with different cities and counties choosing their own editions and local amendments. The Arizona State Fire Code (adopting the 2018 IFC) applies only to state and county buildings, public and private schools, and non-residential occupancies in areas without a locally adopted fire code — it does not establish a statewide residential or commercial building code floor. Each city and county adopts its own code editions independently, resulting in different I-Code years and amendment sets across jurisdictions. There is no state-mandated minimum edition; enforcement is entirely local. Always confirm the adopted edition and any local amendments with the specific jurisdiction before submitting plans.
- City Code § 3-2-8 (Building Official) provides that 'The City Manager may designate or employ one or more officers and/or employees of the City of St. Johns to act as the Building Official ... to implement the provisions of the City of St. Johns Building Code and/or Uniform Code For The Abatement Of Dangerous Buildings' — confirming the City enforces its own locally-adopted Building Code, but the compiled City Code text (2014 codification, Rev. 2014.1, amended through 1-13-21) does not reprint that code's specific edition/year. The City Code's own ordinance-amendment index lists a '2003 Building Code adoption' entry (p. 121 of the printed code) as the most recent building-code-adoption ordinance identifiable in the compiled document; the underlying ordinance text itself was not retrievable in the compiled City Code docx obtained for this file.
- The City's Zoning Ordinance (PZ-Code-1.pdf, 'Final Revised Zoning Ordinance of the City of St. Johns') references 'Uniform Building Code' (UBC) standards in at least two places (factory-built/modular building construction; pressure-treated wood post standards) — UBC is the code family the International Building Code (IBC) nationally superseded by the mid-2000s. This may be a stale cross-reference rather than confirmation that UBC (rather than a current IBC edition) is presently enforced.
- The City's Rates, Charges and Fees Schedule (approved through 10/11/2023) ties commercial building permit fees to 'the most recent Building Valuation Data as published semiannually by the International Code Council,' which confirms the City currently operates within the ICC/International Code family for fee-calculation purposes, even though no specific IBC/IRC/IECC/IMC/IPC/NEC edition year is stated anywhere in the City Code, Zoning Ordinance, or Fee Schedule as retrieved.
- No dedicated 'Codes Adopted' or 'Current Codes' page (of the kind some Arizona municipalities publish) exists on the City's current official website (stjohnsaz.gov) as of 2026-07-19 — confirmed by reviewing the site's full sitemap and department navigation, which lists no Building/Development Services department at all (see tipsAndGotchas).
Permit types & fees
Residential Building Permit
Required for new single-family residential construction within the City of St. Johns. Charged as a flat fee regardless of project valuation, per the City's Rates, Charges and Fees Schedule (approved through 10/11/2023).
Commercial Building Permit
Required for new commercial construction within the City of St. Johns. Fee is calculated per current ICC Building Valuation Data rather than a flat fee, per the City's Rates, Charges and Fees Schedule.
Building Permit for Additions or Remodels (Residential or Commercial)
Covers additions or remodels to existing residential or commercial structures, billed as a separate flat fee from new-construction permits, with plan review billed hourly rather than as a percentage of the permit fee.
Manufactured Housing Permit
Required for manufactured/mobile home placement within the City of St. Johns.
Sign/Billboard Permit
Required for signs and billboards within the City of St. Johns; the Zoning Ordinance requires signs to conform to the City's adopted building codes.
Fence Permit
Required for fence construction within the City of St. Johns.
Residential/Commercial Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Permit
Required for installation of rooftop or ground-mounted solar photovoltaic systems within the City of St. Johns. The City has no standalone solar-specific application, document, or fee line published on its own website or in its Rates, Charges and Fees Schedule — a solar PV installation is billed and processed through the same general Building Permit mechanism used for other electrical/structural work (flat $50.00 residential fee, or ICC Building Valuation Data for commercial, plus the 65% plan review fee and $50.00/hour inspection fee). Arizona statute A.R.S. § 9-468 (Solar construction permits; standards; definition) applies statewide to every incorporated city and town, including St. Johns, and independently caps solar permit fees at the municipality's actual cost of issuing the permit, regardless of what a general valuation-based fee schedule would otherwise produce.
Meter Loop Permit
Listed within the City's 'Building PERMITS' fee-schedule section immediately after the Manufactured Housing Permit. Likely relates to installation of the electrical/water meter loop coordinated with a building permit, though the City's available documents do not further define its scope.
Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Station Permit
Installing an EV charging station (EVSE) within the City of St. Johns has no standalone application, document, or fee line published on the City's own website or in its Rates, Charges and Fees Schedule. As with solar PV (see solar-pv-permit), an EV charger installation is billed and processed through the same general Building Permit mechanism used for other electrical/structural work. Re-extracted the full text of the City's Rates, Charges and Fees Schedule (approved through 10/11/2023) directly for this review and confirmed there is no separate 'electrical permit' fee line anywhere in the schedule at all — the Planning and Zoning / Building Permits section lists only Residential Building Permit ($50 flat), Commercial Building Permit (per ICC Building Valuation Data), 'Additions or remodels for Residential or Commercial' ($50 flat), Manufactured Housing ($200), Meter Loop ($50), Sign/Billboard ($15), Fence ($15), and Inspection Services ($50/hour). Since no distinct electrical-work line exists, a charger added to an existing residence or business is confirmed to fall under 'Additions or remodels' ($50.00 flat, plus an hourly Plan Review fee where applicable), and a charger installed as part of new construction falls under the Residential/Commercial Building Permit line.
Tips & gotchas
- St. Johns SELF-ADMINISTERS building permitting through its own Planning and Zoning function under City Hall — it is NOT routed through Apache County's Building Safety/Community Development Department, despite Apache County's own Building Department being physically headquartered in St. Johns (75 West Cleveland Street) because St. Johns is the county seat. The physical co-location is a genuine source of potential confusion: the county building department located IN St. Johns serves the COUNTY's unincorporated areas, not the city itself, whose building permits are fee-scheduled separately under the City's own 'PLANNING AND ZONING' fee-schedule section.
- The City's OLD official domain, sjaz.us, is now completely offline — every page on it (including the previously-indexed City Code, Zoning Ordinance, and Departments pages) redirects to a cPanel 'suspended page,' confirming the hosting account itself has lapsed, as verified on 2026-07-19. The City's CURRENT official domain is stjohnsaz.gov (Apptegy/Thrillshare-hosted). Older search results and third-party sites still point to sjaz.us URLs, which are dead — use stjohnsaz.gov going forward.
- The City's current official website (stjohnsaz.gov) has NO dedicated Building Safety, Building Permits, or Development Services department page — confirmed by reviewing the site's complete sitemap and navigation menu, which lists only: Police Department, EMS/Fire Emergency Services, Parks & Rec, Public Works (Water and Sewer), Budget & Finances, City Airport, Cemetery, and a 'Planning and Zoning' menu whose only child page is 'Planning & Zoning Meetings' (meeting dates only, not permit information). The SOLE authoritative source for building-permit fee information is the citywide 'Fee Schedule' document linked from the City Hall menu (a .docx titled 'City Rate Schedule 10.11.2023').
- No A.R.S. § 9-835 'Time Frames' chart/document was found for the City of St. Johns after a genuine, multi-source chase (see each permitType's reviewTimelineNote for the full chase description) — every permitType in this file carries reviewTimelineDays: null. This is a materially weaker evidence position than jurisdictions with a published Time Frames chart, and should be revisited if the City's website is restructured or if sjaz.us/stjohnsaz.gov later publishes one.
- The City's adopted building code EDITION YEAR could not be pinned down: City Code § 3-2-8 confirms a City-specific Building Code exists and is enforced by a City-designated Building Official, the ordinance index references a '2003 Building Code adoption' entry, the Zoning Ordinance references the older 'Uniform Building Code' (UBC) family in places, and the Fee Schedule ties commercial fee calculation to the ICC's semiannual Building Valuation Data (implying a current International Code family edition). These three data points are not fully consistent with each other, and no single document states 'the City of St. Johns has adopted the 20XX IBC/IRC' in so many words — flagged rather than resolved by assumption.
- The Internet Archive Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) was experiencing a service-wide outage at the time of this research (2026-07-19) — its availability API, CDX API, and direct snapshot URLs all failed, including for well-known control domains, so historical snapshots of the now-dead sjaz.us domain could not be checked as a fallback chase avenue. This is a genuine tooling blocker, not a decision to stop chasing early.