What Is Plan Check?

California cities, and many jurisdictions that copied their fee schedule, print plan check on the intake receipt, the correction letter, and the resubmittal stamp. A national team that files the same set in another state may see plan review on the portal. The work is still the permit gate.

Using one name in the fee proposal and the other in the comment log makes it hard to tell which comments are the city's and which belong to the owner's consultant. Pick the word the jurisdiction uses, and keep the city's letter in its own file.

The examiner is not coordinating the model and is not pricing the job. The review tests whether the documents show a building that can be permitted under the adopted code: occupancy, construction type, egress, fire ratings, accessibility, energy, and the structural and MEP criteria local amendments call out.

A missing site plan, unsealed calculations, or a sheet index that does not match the uploaded files are ordinary first-cycle comments. Those are completeness items. They burn a cycle before anyone reads a stair width.

The city returns a comment letter or a marked set. Each item has a number. The design team answers in writing, revises the affected sheets, and clouds the change. A reply that only says see revised sheet, without saying what changed, usually comes back unanswered.

Backcheck is the examiner's next look. It is aimed at the open comments. A revision that creates a new code problem can still draw a new comment. Deferred items, such as sprinklers or a curtain wall, stay open only if the approved path says they may be submitted later.

Plan-check fees are often due at intake and sit beside the building permit fee, not inside it. Additional cycles may be billed by the hour or as a percentage of the original fee. The intake checklist is the contract for what must be in the first package.

A set that is still in design development will spend those cycles on missing information. Owners who want a permit date should file a set the examiner can review, with calculations, energy forms, and a response method the portal accepts.

Keep the comment letter, the written response, and the revised sheets together. The contractor who builds from a PDF that is not the revision the city stamped is building a delta that was never permitted.

Title each response with the comment number, the sheet, and the action: revised, clarified, or exception requested. That line is what the backcheck reads. The cloud on the sheet should point at the same change.