Your line
Read out the stamp line you did not fully understand. Do not look it up first.
The approval stamp, in full
Verbatim from your own approved Wooster Avenue permit set.
City of Belmont — Building Division
CITY OF BELMONT · BUILDING DIVISION · APPROVED · 08/25/2025 · Permit # B2025-0208
This approval requires all work to comply with all adopted State and City Building Codes and Zoning Ordinances.
This Plan Must Be Kept On The Job Site.
PERMIT & APPROVED PLANS MUST BE ON THE JOB SITE FOR ALL INSPECTIONS.
THIS PROJECT MUST BE FINALED BY [date].
THIS PROJECT MUST COMPLY WITH THE 2022 CALIFORNIA CODE OF REGULATIONS AS AMENDED BY STATE & LOCAL ORDINANCE.
CONSTRUCTION HOURS: MON–FRI 8:00a–5:00p · SAT 10:00a–5:00p · NO WORK ON SUNDAYS OR HOLIDAYS.
Notice the modal. You spent Unit 6 learning that specification English uses shall. This stamp uses must, six times, and shall not once.
That is not an inconsistency. It is a register difference with a reason: a specification is written by a professional for a professional, and follows drafting convention. A permit stamp is written by a public authority for anyone — the owner, the contractor, a labourer on site — and public agencies increasingly use plain-language must precisely so that nobody can claim they did not understand it.
Same legal force. Different audience.
Now sort the six obligations by who they bind:
- Which bind the contractor on site?
- Which bind the owner?
- Which bind you, the designer?
- Which one has a deadline attached, and what happens if it passes?
Modal passive, and who disappears
The stamp’s grammar
| Line | Structure | Who is bound? |
|---|---|---|
| This Plan must be kept on the job site. | modal + be + past participle | Unstated — whoever has the plans |
| Permit & approved plans must be on the job site for all inspections. | modal + be + place | Unstated — in practice the contractor |
| This project must be finaled by [date]. | modal + be + past participle + deadline | Unstated — in practice the owner |
| This approval requires all work to comply with… | active, with the approval as subject | All work, i.e. everyone |
Same agentless move as Unit 6, opposite direction. A specification drops the actor so the obligation survives a change of subcontractor. A permit stamp drops the actor so it binds everyone at once — the city does not care which of you keeps the plans on site, only that they are there when the inspector arrives.
In practice, this means an obligation with no named subject is yours to allocate. If you do not tell the contractor that the plans must stay on site, nobody has.
Read the stamp closely
All answers are in the stamp text in Phase 02.
1. The stamp says the project must be finaled by a date. What happens if it is not?
2. Why does the stamp cite the 2022 California Code of Regulations as amended by State & Local Ordinance?
3. The stamp restricts construction hours and forbids work on Sundays. Who does that obligation fall on in practice?
4. Why does the stamp use must rather than the shall you learned in Unit 6?
Complete each sentence with the correct form of the word in brackets.
- This approval requires all work to be in full with adopted State and City codes. COMPLY
- Work on Sundays is not under the terms of this approval. PERMIT
- The project is subject to local ordinances as well as the state code. ZONE
- The proposed design achieves a 59% in impervious surface. REDUCE
- No work may proceed without written from the Building Division. APPROVE
- Construction hours are to weekdays and Saturday mornings. RESTRICT
Brief the contractor on the stamp
Task card
Your teacher is the contractor, starting on site on Monday
Walk them through every obligation on the stamp that affects them, and say who carries each one.
- Do not read the stamp aloud — translate it into what they actually have to do.
- Be explicit about the final inspection deadline and what happens if it slips.
- They will push back on the Saturday hours. Hold the line.
The unallocated obligation
Which obligation on that stamp currently has nobody assigned to it on your real project? That is not a language question — but it is the one this lesson exists to surface.
Before the next lesson
Homework. Find one requirement in any code or ordinance you work with that is conditional — it only applies in certain circumstances. Bring the exact wording.