Map a realistic week-by-week schedule from site measure-up through drafting, plan check and permit issuance. This covers the paperwork phase only, not construction.
Every result is a planning estimate, not a quote or an engineering determination. Real numbers depend on site conditions, existing structure, engineering requirements, and your jurisdiction’s current fee schedule. For structural and engineering work we coordinate with a licensed engineer — we do not perform or stamp engineering ourselves. Get a project-specific estimate before committing to a budget.
Most homeowners assume the city is the slow part. Often it is not. The drafting phases in front of plan check — measure-up, schematic design, owner review, then the full construction set — usually account for a third to half of the calendar time before a permit is issued, and they are the part you control.
The biggest single variable is decision speed on your side. A schematic round that sits unanswered for three weeks moves permit issuance three weeks later, and no amount of drafting effort recovers it. The second variable is completeness. A permit set that arrives with the site plan dimensioned, the energy documents matching the drawings and the structural package coordinated tends to come back with a short correction list. A set assembled in pieces comes back with a long one, and each correction cycle adds weeks.
Structural engineering is a genuine sequence item, not a formality. When beams, shear walls or foundation changes are involved, the engineer needs a stable architectural layout before running calculations, and any layout change afterward means the calculations get revisited. Locking the plan early is the cheapest schedule insurance there is. We prepare the drawings and coordinate the engineer; the engineer performs and stamps the structural work.
The same set of drawings can move at very different speeds depending on which counter it lands on. Campbell, Santa Clara, Milpitas, Dublin and Union City generally turn a first residential review faster than Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Los Gatos, Los Altos or San Jose, where review queues, design review overlays and historic or arborist referrals can stretch the first pass considerably. Some departments run intake screening that rejects an incomplete package before it ever enters the queue, which feels like a setback but usually saves time overall.
Over-the-counter and express review programs exist in several Bay Area cities for small, straightforward scopes, and they can collapse a multi-week first review into a single appointment. Eligibility rules are narrow and change often, so it is worth asking the department directly rather than assuming.
Where a project involves existing unpermitted work, add time for records research and as-builts before anything else can start. Documentation of what is already standing is the foundation of the whole submittal — see code violation and red tag resolution for how that path runs.
No. Every phase in this estimator ends at permit issuance. Construction scheduling, contractor availability and inspections during the build are separate and are handled by your contractor. Think of this as the paperwork runway before a shovel moves.
No, and neither can anyone else. Plan check outcomes and review durations are the building department’s decision. These ranges reflect typical Bay Area experience and shift with submittal completeness, staffing and current backlog. We control the quality and completeness of the drawings, which is the part that most reliably shortens the timeline.
Usually very little. CF1R preparation normally runs in parallel with the construction drawings rather than after them, so the calendar impact is often close to zero. It becomes a delay only when it is left until the end, or when the energy documents and the drawings disagree and both have to be reworked.
Answer schematic review promptly, lock the layout before structural calculations begin, and submit a complete package the first time. Corrections and resubmittal is the phase with the widest range on this whole list, and it is almost entirely driven by how complete the original submittal was.
Tell us what you're building and we'll get back to you with next steps — usually within one business day.
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Yuna Drafting