Div 05 · Permitting & Approvals
The permit path, cleared before it costs you a season.
Permitting rarely costs an owner money directly. It costs weeks — and weeks are what a construction loan is priced in.
Permitting is where projects lose time invisibly. Nothing looks wrong — the drawings are "in plan check," the application is "under review" — while months pass and carrying costs run. Our permitting guidance is owner-side strategy: what to file, in what order, what each approval will actually cost you in time, and the discipline that keeps a correction list from turning into a second season. Your licensed A/E signs and seals; we keep the path clear.
Written recommendations within two business days · Nothing to prepare · Mutual NDA from the first conversation
Division
Div 05
Phase
Permitting
Issued for
Owner review
Sheet
S-105
The record behind the judgment
$280M+
In capital projects delivered
20 yrs
Design and construction, both sides of the table
Zero
Unplanned outages, live data-center upgrade
Secret
Active U.S. DoD clearance
What permitting guidance covers
Every jurisdiction has an approval sequence — zoning and entitlements, plan check across disciplines, clearances from agencies that don't talk to each other — and the sequence, not the paperwork, is where the schedule is won or lost. We map the path for your specific project before the first filing: which approvals gate which, what can run in parallel, where the long poles are, and what each cycle costs in weeks. Then we keep the map current as the project moves, so "under review" always has a date and an owner attached.
Where projects lose their season
The failures repeat: filings submitted before the disciplines coordinate, correction lists treated as the architect's private problem, resubmittals sent piecemeal so sheets that already passed get fresh eyes, and plan-checker misreadings silently absorbed as redesign instead of answered in writing. Each avoidable cycle typically costs four to eight weeks. The owner's leverage is simple and mostly unused: a dispositioned correction list — every item assigned to a party, with a response and a date — and one complete, coordinated resubmittal.
What we deliberately don't do
We're not an expediter with a friend at the counter, and we're not your design professional. Aldermont holds no design license — your licensed architect and engineers author the responses and carry the stamp. What we hold is the owner's side of the process: the sequence, the accountability, and the written record that keeps every party moving. That's also why our read of a stalled permit is independent — we have no authorship to defend.
Asked about this service
Do I need a permitting consultant if my architect handles the permit?
Your architect handles their scope of the permit — their sheets, their corrections, their resubmittals. But the approval path usually runs wider than any one discipline: zoning, engineering, fire, health, utilities, sometimes state agencies, each with its own queue and its own gate. Owner-side guidance sequences the whole path and keeps every correction assigned across all parties. It complements the architect's work; it doesn't replace it.
What's the difference between a permit expediter and permitting advisory?
An expediter runs documents — files applications, stands in queues, tracks intake status. Useful, and narrow. Permitting advisory is strategy: what to file in what order, whether the drawings are actually ready to submit, how to respond when the correction list arrives, and when a plan checker's comment should be answered rather than absorbed. The expediter moves paper faster; the advisor makes sure the paper doesn't come back.
My permit keeps getting rejected — can you help mid-cycle?
Yes — mid-cycle is the most common entry point. We read the actual correction list, disposition every item to its owner (architect, engineer, your own scope decisions, or the plan checker's misreading), and push for one complete, coordinated resubmittal instead of another partial round. Two rejections on the same items is a signal that something upstream — coordination, code strategy, or the agency relationship — needs to change before cycle three.
How long does permitting take in California?
Honestly: it varies enormously — by jurisdiction, project type, and which agencies are involved, from weeks for simple scopes to a year or more for entitlement-heavy work. The variable an owner actually controls is wasted cycles. Each avoidable resubmittal round typically costs four to eight weeks, so a project that permits in two cycles instead of four has bought back a season regardless of the jurisdiction's baseline pace.
Two ways in
Start where the risk is lowest.
Orientation call · 20 minutes · no fee
Find out whether you need us at all.
Fifteen minutes on your project, five on a straight answer: whether an advisor is worth your money at this stage, what it would take, and what it would cost. No documents, no preparation. If the answer is that you don't need one yet, you'll get that answer too — it's the cheapest thing we can tell you.
Project review · 60 minutes · $350, credited if you engage
Bring the project. Leave with recommendations.
A working session on your actual documents — the parcel you're weighing, the drawing set, the budget, the permit path you can't see through. Written recommendations land within two business days, in your hands to act on with or without us. If you engage us, the fee comes off your first invoice in full.
What to prepare: nothing.
Send whatever is already on your desk — a site address, a PDF set, a bid, a change order, a letter you don't like the tone of. Or send nothing and just talk. Working out which of it actually matters is the job you're hiring, not homework you owe us first.
Related field notes