You’ve submitted your drawings. Now what?

For most first-time permit applicants  whether you’re a homeowner adding a second story, a developer entitling a new build, or an investor underwriting a timeline for a value-add project  the plan check process feels like sending a package into a black box. You know it’s being reviewed. You don’t know by whom, in what order, against what standard, or why it sometimes comes back three separate times with three separate sets of comments.

After more than a decade shepherding permit sets through building departments across multiple jurisdictions, I can tell you the process is far more structured  and far more predictable  than it appears from the outside. It’s also one of the most common places where projects lose months of schedule, almost always for reasons that were entirely avoidable. Let’s walk through exactly what happens once your drawings hit the counter, step by step.

What “Plan Check” Actually Means

Plan check (sometimes called plan review) is the process by which your local building department  the Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ)  verifies that your submitted drawings comply with applicable building codes, zoning ordinances, and any jurisdiction-specific requirements before issuing a construction permit. It is fundamentally a compliance review, not a design critique  plan check reviewers are checking your drawings against code requirements, not evaluating whether they like your design.

That distinction matters because it shapes how you should respond to comments: plan check corrections are rarely subjective and almost always traceable to a specific code section, which means they’re addressable, not negotiable in the way a design opinion might be.

Step-by-Step: The Plan Check Process

Step 1: Intake and Completeness Review

Before your project is routed to technical reviewers, most jurisdictions perform an intake or completeness check a screening to confirm the submittal includes everything required (correct forms, fees, number of copies or digital sets, and all required disciplines). A surprising number of delays happen right here, before substantive review even begins, because a required document was missing or a fee was miscalculated.

Insider tip: Call or check your jurisdiction’s current submittal checklist immediately before finalizing your set requirements; changes more often than applicants expect, and an outdated checklist is one of the most common causes of an avoidable intake rejection.

Step 2: Routing to Discipline-Specific Reviewers

Once accepted, your set is typically routed in parallel to multiple review disciplines, which may include:

• Planning / Zoning  verifying setbacks, height limits, lot coverage, and use compliance
• Building / Structural  verifying structural adequacy and life-safety code compliance
• Fire  verifying fire/life-safety systems, access, and egress
• Public Works / Engineering  verifying grading, drainage, and utility connections
• Specialty reviewers  triggered by project-specific conditions (environmental, coastal, historic preservation, accessibility)

Each discipline reviews independently and on its own timeline, which is why comments frequently arrive in separate batches rather than all at once a detail that surprises many first-time applicants who expect a single consolidated response.

Step 3: Comments, Corrections, or “Redlines”

If a reviewer identifies an issue, you’ll receive a correction letter (sometimes called redlines, comments, or plan check comments), a formal list citing the specific code section and the specific deficiency. This is the step that causes the most anxiety for first-time applicants, and it shouldn’t. Receiving corrections is the normal outcome of plan check, not a sign your architect made a mistake. In my experience, the overwhelming majority of permit sets, including ones I consider excellently prepared, receive at least one round of corrections. The rare “no comments” approval is the exception, not the benchmark to expect.

Step 4: Response and Resubmittal

Your team addresses each comment individually, typically producing a formal response letter that maps each correction to the specific revision made in the drawings, and resubmits the corrected set. This is where experienced firms create real value: a well-organized response letter that clearly cross-references each comment to its resolution moves through re-review meaningfully faster than a rushed, poorly documented resubmittal that forces the reviewer to hunt for what changed.

Step 5: Re-Review

The corrected set goes back to the same reviewer (in most jurisdictions) to confirm the correction resolves the issue. This is usually, though not always, faster than the initial review, since the reviewer is checking specific items rather than performing a full review from scratch. Depending on the jurisdiction and complexity, this cycle may repeat two or three times before every discipline signs off.

Step 6: Final Approval and Permit Issuance

Once every reviewing discipline has signed off, the set moves to final approval and the permit is issued, often along with final fee reconciliation. In many jurisdictions, this triggers a required pre-construction step such as scheduling an initial inspection before work can legally begin on site.

Why Timelines Vary So Much Between Projects

This is the question I get asked most, and the honest answer is that plan check duration depends on a handful of factors within your control and several that aren’t:

• Jurisdiction workload and staffing: review timelines fluctuate significantly based on current submittal volume, which is largely outside your control but worth asking about directly (many jurisdictions publish current average review times).
• Project complexity and triggered disciplines: a project requiring coastal commission review or historic preservation sign-off will inherently take longer than one that doesn’t, regardless of how well-prepared the drawings are.
• Submittal quality: this is the factor most within your control. A well-coordinated set with consistent information across disciplines (architectural, structural, and MEP drawings that all agree with each other) generates fewer corrections than a set with internal inconsistencies.
• Responsiveness of the applicant team: how quickly your architect turns around a resubmittal after receiving corrections directly affects total elapsed time, independent of the department’s own review speed.

Insider Tips for a Smoother Plan Check Process

1. Request a pre-application meeting if your jurisdiction offers one. Many building departments offer informal pre-submittal consultations that surface major issues before formal review begins a significantly cheaper way to catch a problem than through a formal correction cycle.
2. Ensure disciplines are coordinated before submittal, not after. The most common cause of repeated correction cycles isn’t a single major error it’s small inconsistencies between architectural and structural (or MEP) drawings that a coordinated internal review would have caught.
3. Track corrections in a response matrix, not just email threads. A clearly organized document that maps every comment to its specific resolution is one of the simplest ways to speed up re-review, and it’s a habit that separates experienced applicant teams from first-timers.
4. Don’t assume silence means approval. If you haven’t heard back within your jurisdiction’s stated review window, follow up proactively  plan check queues are rarely as automated as applicants assume, and a submittal can occasionally sit longer than expected without anyone flagging it.

The Most Common Mistake First-Time Applicants Make

The single biggest mistake I see is treating the first correction letter as a bad outcome  reacting with frustration or, worse, disputing well-founded code citations instead of simply addressing them. This delays resubmittal and, in some cases, damages the working relationship with a reviewer you’ll likely interact with again on future resubmittals. The applicants who move through plan check fastest are the ones who treat corrections as a routine, expected part of the process and respond quickly and precisely rather than pushing back on items that are, in fact, valid code requirements.

A second common mistake is submitting before internal coordination is complete  pushing a set out the door to “stop the clock” on a deadline, when the set still contains discipline-to-discipline inconsistencies. This almost always backfires, since it generates avoidable corrections that add far more time overall than the days saved by submitting early.

Final Take

Plan check can feel opaque from the outside, but it follows a consistent, predictable structure: intake, discipline-specific review, corrections, resubmittal, and final sign-off. The applicants who move through it fastest aren’t the ones who submit the “perfect” set on the first try  corrections are close to universal  they’re the ones who submit a well-coordinated set, respond to corrections quickly and precisely, and stay proactively engaged with the reviewing department throughout. Understanding the process in advance is, itself, one of the most effective ways to keep your project on schedule.