Electronic Plan Check at Community Development

Building permits in the City of Sacramento are issued by the Building Division of the Community Development Department. Projects that need plan review are submitted through the city's Electronic Plan Check program, on the Citizen Portal, an Accela Citizen Access site where an applicant can submit, follow the status of the application and pay fees (City of Sacramento, Citizen Portal registration guide).

The city's Electronic Plan Check submittal guide (version 27, revised February 2020) sets out the process in detail (City of Sacramento, EPC submittal guide):

Planning clearance first. City Planning intake staff review the submitted files to decide whether an entitlement is needed and clear the submittal for Building before plan review begins.
One submittal record for every cycle. The project receives a submittal record (a SUB- number), and every revised upload in response to plan review comments goes to that same record, even after a building permit record is assigned.
Three files in the first submittal. An application file, a plans file and a supplemental documents file.
A reply file from the second cycle. Later cycles upload only the files that changed, plus a reply file with the responses to the plan reviewers.
A response letter and clouded revisions. Revised plans come with a plan review response letter addressing each correction comment, and every change is clouded, delta'd and drawn in the same format and scale as the original submittal.
Fees before review. Submittal fees are calculated and invoiced on the permit record, and the project enters plan review once they are paid.
Changes after submittal. Scope revisions in the middle of plan review, revisions to issued permits and deferred submittals each have their own section and file rules in the guide, so a change late in the project is planned as its own submittal.
Intake. The guide states a goal of responding to every Electronic Plan Check submittal within 24 hours, excluding weekends and holidays.

That is the same discipline the studio applies everywhere: a written response for each comment, keyed to its number, and revised sheets clouded and delta'd so the reviewer finds every change. The plan check corrections service and the LADBS corrections guide describe the method in detail; Sacramento's guide asks for the same elements by name.

Ministerial housing paths

Sacramento's planning pages describe ministerial permit options for housing projects that meet objective standards and eligibility requirements: such projects are approved administratively, without a public hearing, and the city has adopted citywide objective design standards for infill housing, organized as a checklist used for the ministerial review of applications under state law (City of Sacramento, Ministerial Housing). The state process itself is set out in HCD's guidelines (HCD, "Updated Streamlined Ministerial Approval Process").

A ministerial project changes what the drawings have to prove. With no hearing and no discretionary findings, the set and the application have to show compliance standard by standard: a compliance table on the general sheets, keyed to the checklist, with each standard pointing to the plan, elevation or detail where it is met. Producing that table and keeping it in step with the drawings through every revision is drawing work the studio can take from your office.

What the reviewer sees first

Because the city's first step is a planning clearance and its second is a fee invoice, the first thing a Sacramento reviewer opens is the application and the general sheets. A set that reads well there moves faster: the project data, the code analysis with the city's local amendments, the sheet index matching the sheets uploaded, and the plans file bookmarked by sheet number. The title-block check covers the consistency items a reviewer trips on most often, from sheet numbers that do not match the index to callouts that point to the wrong sheet.

Density bonus and the state rules

Sacramento implements the State Density Bonus Law like every California city, and the state requirements apply in full: CBC Chapter 11A or 11B for accessibility, Title 24 Part 6 for energy, CALGreen for green building. The density bonus guide and the density bonus calculator cover the bonus; the 11A and 11B guide covers accessibility on a multifamily set.

Affordable housing in the region

The Sacramento area falls in the Capital Region of the state's 9 percent tax credit competition. In CTCAC's 2026 credit estimates, the Capital Region's apportionment is 5.7 percent of the geographic credits, about $4.4 million in annual federal credits (CTCAC, 2026 credit estimates).

How the studio works on a Sacramento set

The founder's own record is in Los Angeles, and the studio does not claim Sacramento projects. What transfers is the production and the correction method:

Your model and template. Every sheet drawn in your Revit model, to your standards, under your worksharing rules.
The city's file structure. The application, plans, supplemental and reply files prepared the way the Electronic Plan Check guide describes them, uploaded to the same submittal record each cycle.
Corrections on the sheets. A response letter for every cycle, each comment answered in writing and in the drawings, with a dated log.
Your office files. Your office keeps the filing, the client and the decisions.

See the construction documents service for what a package covers, or start with one project.

Construction documents and plan check in Sacramento