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Department of Building Inspections

Plan Examination

How Long Does It Take?

The department's first goal is to help the applicant prepare documents that will be approved on the first review. Most applications that need two more or reviews have the following things in common:

• The drawings are not complete, sometimes missing entire pages or critical details and specifications.
• The associated permit applications are not submitted at the same time or before the application is reviewed by the plan examiner.
• The construction documents are not coordinated with the associated permit application documents.
• The drawings are not designed to the appropriate building code.

The department's second goal is to help the applicant obtain a building permit in the least amount of time possible. Department records show that the applicant loses a considerable amount of time in resubmitting documents for review. A complete application is a successful application.

A commercial application could have four reviews and still be issued in fewer than 30 days. (All outside agency approvals are required.) Here is an example:

• March 3rd, Monday, application date
• March 25th, Tuesday, plan examiner reviews application (1st review) - 16 working days
• March 28th, Friday plan examiner reviews corrections (2nd review) - 19 working days
• April 1st, Tuesday, plan examiner reviews corrections (3rd review) - 21 working days
• April 4th, Friday, plan examiner review corrections (4th review) - 24 working days

The key is that the designer responds quickly with plan review corrections. The department reviews new applications on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Application corrections/revisions are reviewed on Tuesday and Friday. If the application review date falls on a Revision day (Tuesday or Friday), then the plans are reviewed on the day before. On many occasions, the applications are reviewed before the goals of six and 16 working days. DBI gives prompt attention to revisions, they are not put at the end of the line.

Another way to look at the above example, is if the application is approved with only one review, the building permit is approvable in 16 working days or in 22 calendar days. If two reviews are necessary, the application is approvable in 19 working days or 25 calendar days.

Associated permits
On all new building, addition, and alteration permits, the mechanical (HVAC) permit is required to be submitted for review along with the building permit, therefore, if the HVAC application is missing, that will cause the approval of the building permit application to be delayed.

On some types of permits where gas line, sprinklers, underground piping, alarms, kitchen hoods and suppression, and other applications are required, any delay in application can have an affect on the final approval of the building permit. A building permit can be approved conditionally for large projects permits with the associated applications coming in later, but in most cases, these additional permits are on the same time schedule as the building permit. It is advisable to notify the plan examiner if the associated permit applications are not going to be ready to be submitted at the same time as the building permit application. This usually occurs on larger projects that have long construction time lines where and/or the sub-contractor contracts are awarded later.