Our foundation is illegal

I stopped by the code office this morning to see what the resolution was for tying the rebar. Joe Riddle (Nudura) was already there, meeting with them. Turns out that our foundation is illegal. Because we are using ICF "walls" for our columns, the space inside the walls is now considered enclosed. The maximum enclosed area allowed is 300 ft², and ours is 2400 ft². (We had submitted our revised foundation to them, but they had no record of ever receiving it. Typical for this office.)

Any amount of logic was immaterial to the conversation. Hydrostatics versus velocity was irrelevant. To satisfy code, we have to tear down the walls and put columns in - i.e., we need to weaken our foundation. Seeing that it was a losing battle, Joe turned into damage-control mode suggesting meetings to make sure that this isn't a problem for other houses that are being designed on the coast right now. I gritted my teeth and kept from threatening to burn their building down until I got outside.

So, our pour for this afternoon is cancelled. Our worthless engineer is heading out of town on vacation for a week, so Joe is going to set up a meeting between the engineer, code office, and himself for the following week to figure out how elevated ICF houses on the coast should be constructed, hopefully resolving our issue at the same time.