Porta Potty Rental in University City, MO 63130

Inside a fenced University City yard, or within a closed construction site, no permit covers the unit itself. Public ground needs a city permit, and there is a local detail about where the waste goes that genuinely surprises people here.

The city permit covers occupying the right of way, not just digging it up. University City's Right of Way Permit Program tells you that if you plan to excavate, occupy or use public right of way for a construction or improvement project, you must obtain a permit from the Public Works Department, however large or small the project is. The words occupy or use are what reach a placed unit, rather than only an excavation. The city adds that failing to obtain one can bring a stop work order and fines, and that materials and equipment must not be stored overnight on public rights of way without approval. Construction hours run weekdays between 7:00 am and 5:00 pm, and private driveways must stay clear.

University City owns its own transfer station, and that is unusual. The city says plainly that it is one of only a few municipalities in the St. Louis metropolitan area to own and operate its own transfer station along with a fleet of refuse and recycling vehicles, run out of an operational office on Pennsylvania Avenue. For most waste questions in this city, the answer is a city department rather than a contractor.

But a portable restroom is the exception. That transfer station handles municipal refuse, bulky items, brush and untreated wood. It is not a liquid waste facility, so the contents of a portable restroom do not go there. Missouri treats those contents as hauled sewage and puts the duty on the owner or operator to route them to a plant equipped to receive them or to a company in the pumping and disposal business, which in this region means the metropolitan sewer district. The city that handles nearly all of its own waste does not handle this one.

The county layer applies here too. The county's nonsewered sanitation rules cover unincorporated ground and every municipality apart from those that are both 75,000 or larger and running an organized health department of their own. University City is well under that figure, so the county rules govern. A gathering open to the public expecting 100 or more at peak hour, short of plumbed toilets, needs a Special Event Sanitation Permit from the county health department, and the application must name the operator supplying the units and describe the servicing arrangements. The county definition expressly leaves out running, cycling and motorcycling events.

The county servicing standard is numeric: service before the tank passes 35 percent of its volume, no use once it reaches half full, and a six inch recharge of solution at each visit. On the service side the county licenses both the provider and the vehicle that empties the tank.

Unsure whether a Loop placement sits in the right of way? Your account manager can check with the city before you book.