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Construction documents and plan check in San Diego

Multifamily sets drawn in your Revit model for the City of San Diego's Development Services Department, with the city's housing programs drawn where the reviewer looks for them.

Typology study: brick apartment building on a city corner over a glazed ground floor, planted terraces stepping down one flank, rowhouses beyond.
Typology study · illustrative rendering

Plan review at Development Services

Building permits in the City of San Diego are issued by the Development Services Department (DSD). Applications, plans and documents are submitted online through the city's Accela Citizen Access portal, where an applicant can upload the set, pay fees and track the review (City of San Diego, online permit user guide).

Review comments come back in a Cycle Issues Report, which collects the issues raised by each discipline and outside agency in that review cycle. The city's own guidance sets out how resubmittal works: reviewers send their part of the report as they finish, but the project can only be resubmitted after every review in the cycle is complete, and the resubmittal answers every discipline at once (City of San Diego, OpenDSD user guide).

That rule shapes the work on the drawings. A San Diego correction round is answered as one package: every revised sheet, every written response and every consultant return assembled together, so no discipline holds up the others. The plan check corrections service is built the same way: each comment answered in writing, keyed to its number, with the sheet and detail where the answer is drawn.

Complete Communities Housing Solutions

San Diego has its own floor-area-based incentive program for housing near transit, Complete Communities Housing Solutions, in Chapter 14, Article 3, Division 10 of the San Diego Municipal Code (SDMC Chapter 14, Article 3, Division 10). The city's Information Bulletin 411 describes it (IB 411):

  • Eligibility. Sites in a Sustainable Development Area, zoned for commercial, residential or mixed use, with a minimum residential density of 20 dwelling units per acre.
  • Affordability. For rental projects, at least 40 percent of the pre-density bonus units as affordable units: in the base option, 15 percent at very low income (50 percent of area median income), 15 percent at moderate income (120 percent of AMI) and 10 percent at low income (60 percent of AMI), with alternative mixes set out in the bulletin.
  • Floor area. A maximum floor area ratio by tier: no maximum Downtown and in Tier 1, 8.0 in Tier 2, 6.5 in Tier 3, 4.0 in Tier 4 and 2.5 in the Coastal Overlay, plus an additional 1.5 FAR where at least 10 percent of the units have two bedrooms and 10 percent have three.
  • Height. The structure height limit is waived outside the Coastal Overlay and airport zones.
  • Street frontage. Sidewalks widened to at least 14 feet, one 24-inch box canopy tree for every 20 feet of street frontage, and ground-floor units with separate entrances where they front the public right-of-way.
  • Processing. Projects that can be approved ministerially qualify for the city's expedited review, which IB 411 states at 30 business days or fewer.

On the sheets, a Complete Communities project is mostly arithmetic made visible: the FAR calculation by tier, the affordable unit count from the pre-density bonus base, the bedroom mix that earns the extra 1.5 FAR, and the frontage improvements drawn on the site and ground-floor plans.

Density bonus in San Diego

San Diego also implements the State Density Bonus Law through its own Affordable Housing Regulations in Chapter 14, Article 3, Division 7 of the municipal code (SDMC Chapter 14, Article 3, Division 7). The code sets the affordability tiers for rental agreements, for example at least 5 percent of the pre-density bonus units at very low income or 10 percent at low income, and requires rental affordable units to stay affordable for 55 years or longer. The density bonus guide sets out what a bonus changes in the drawing set, and the density bonus calculator works out the base and bonus unit counts for a site.

Affordable housing in the region

San Diego County is its own geographic region in the state's 9 percent tax credit competition. In CTCAC's 2026 credit estimates, the region's apportionment is 8.6 percent of the geographic credits, about $6.7 million in annual federal credits (CTCAC, 2026 credit estimates). Tax credit projects bring their own drawing requirements, starting with CBC Chapter 11B on publicly funded housing; the 11A and 11B guide covers them.

How the studio works on a San Diego set

The founder's own record is in Los Angeles, and the studio does not claim local projects in San Diego. What transfers to a San Diego set is the production itself, and the way a correction round is answered:

  • Your model and template. Every sheet is drawn in your Revit model, to your standards, under your worksharing rules.
  • The code base. San Diego reviews to the California Building Standards Code, the same base code as every other California city, with the city's local amendments.
  • Corrections as one package. Cycle issues answered on the sheets, with a written response for every comment and a dated log, assembled to resubmit for all disciplines at once.
  • The set your office files. Your office keeps the filing, the client and the decisions; the studio handles the drawing.

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

Sources

Related
ServicePlan check corrections for multifamily setsCorrections answered on the sheets, with revised sheets clouded and numbered, a response keyed to every comment and a dated log for your office.GuideWhat a California density bonus changes in the drawing setThe State Density Bonus Law from the drawing side: the bonus chart, the incentives and waivers, the parking ratios, and the tables and diagrams a bonus project puts on its sheets.September 30, 2026LocationMultifamily sets for practices across CaliforniaSets drawn to the California Building Standards Code, with the accessibility chapters, the energy forms and the state housing laws that shape a multifamily set in every California city.