Deck building
in Grain Valley

Porches follow the same rule. The brochure treats porches and decks together, so a new or rebuilt front porch needs a permit just as a backyard deck does.

Applications are submitted online through the city's permit portal, where "Deck" is its own project type and the drawings are attached to the application. The brochure lists two required submittals:

Site plan

drawn to scale, showing where the porch or deck sits on the lot and its setbacks from the property lines

Construction plans

the columns, beams and joists, with their sizes, spacing and connections

The permit fee is figured from the project's valuation, and the building inspections that follow are requested through the city's online inspection portal.

The brochure translates the code into a handful of dimensions the city checks on every deck and stair:

Guards

required on any deck or stair more than 30 inches above grade, at least 36 inches tall, with spindles no more than 4 inches on center and the bottom of the guard within 6 inches of the deck surface. A guard on the open side of a stair may be 34 to 38 inches tall.

Stairs

at least 36 inches wide, with risers no taller than 7¾ inches and treads at least 10 inches deep (11 inches without a nosing). Open risers can't let a 4-inch sphere pass through.

Landing

a landing at the bottom of the stairs as wide as the stairs and at least 3 feet long.

Handrails

required once a stair has four or more risers, between 34 and 38 inches high, on at least one side, and continuous from the top to the lowest step.

These are the brochure's minimums, not a design. Joist size, beam spans and post locations still depend on the deck's footprint, its height and the decking chosen. The bottom landing deserves a place in the plan from the start, because it takes up yard space beyond the deck itself and can run into the same easement and setback limits as the deck.

Easements limit many Grain Valley decks before setbacks do. The brochure states that no porches or decks are permitted in utility or storm drainage easements, and the city asks homeowners to find out whether a lot has easements before applying. These easements commonly run along rear and side lot lines, so on a shallow backyard the easement line, not the property line, often decides how far a deck can extend. Footing holes dug to 36 inches can also reach buried lines, which is why the city points to Missouri One Call at 1-800-DIG-RITE before construction.

Zoning sets the yards. In Grain Valley's R-1, R-1A and R-1B single-family districts, the minimum rear yard is 30 feet. The zoning code's yard exceptions let an open porch or canopy with a roof area of no more than 60 square feet project up to 6 feet into a required front or rear yard, and an existing open porch that already extends into a required yard can't be enclosed. The site plan submitted with the permit is where those distances are shown and checked.

Subdivision covenants are a separate layer. The brochure notes that private covenants attached to a property's deed may add restrictions, and that the city does not enforce them. Where a neighborhood has architectural review, its approval of materials, colors or railing styles sits alongside the city permit rather than replacing it, so a Grain Valley deck builder plans for both reviews.

KC Deck Builds is a locally owned, licensed and insured deck builder in Grain Valley and across the wider Kansas City metro. For a first deck, our new deck construction page explains how we build from the footings up. When an existing deck's frame or footings have failed, deck replacement covers the rebuild, and deck repair covers damage on a deck worth keeping. Our composite deck installation and wood deck construction pages compare the two decking materials, and deck railing installation and deck stair installation go further into guards and stairs. For a roofed entry, see porch construction.