Permitting & Expediting

Every jurisdiction has its own submission format, review sequence and recurring objections. Filing correctly the first time is what separates a short approval from a long one.

Technical drawing — Representative drawing work

What actually sets the timeline

Not the department, in most cases. The largest controllable variable is whether the first submission is complete and prepared in the format the reviewing department expects.

An incomplete or ambiguous set does not get a phone call. It goes into the objection queue and comes back, and each round trip costs weeks rather than days. A set that anticipates the recurring objections of that particular department — and includes the supporting documentation it will ask for — frequently approves in a fraction of the elapsed time, with identical drawings underneath.

Every department is a different department

There are two dozen towns and cities across Nassau and Suffolk and close to a hundred incorporated villages, and nearly all of them administer their own building department, their own code and their own submission requirements. New York City is different again.

They differ in what they want on a cover sheet, whether they accept digital or paper, what supporting documents accompany an application, how they calculate fees, and which items they routinely object to. Knowing which department wants what is not administrative trivia — it is the difference between one review cycle and three.

Engineering and filing in the same place

On most projects the design and the filing sit with different firms, which means every plan examiner comment has to travel between them: the filer receives an objection they cannot answer, forwards it to the designer, waits, and returns a response they cannot evaluate.

Here both sit together. A comment on the structural calculations is answered by the person who performed them, usually the same day. That removes the handoff, and the handoff is where most of the lost time on a filing accumulates.

The agencies beyond the building department

Depending on scope, a project may also need county health department review of the sanitary arrangement — routine across unsewered Suffolk and frequently the longest item in the program — along with fire department review, environmental or wetlands permits, highway or curb-cut approvals, and in the city, transportation, environmental protection and landmarks depending on the work.

These have their own applications and their own calendars, and several want to see another body’s determination before they act. Sequencing them correctly is most of what a realistic program consists of.

Scope

Permit filing, tracking and follow-up
Plan review coordination and objection responses
Application revisions and resubmissions
Expedited processing where a jurisdiction offers it
Coordination with plan examiners and inspectors
Final approvals and sign-offs

Who we work with

Contractors, builders, developers and owners who would rather not manage a building department.

Where we deliver this

Across Nassau, Suffolk, the East End and all five boroughs. Most requested in:

Related services

Related guides

Common questions

How long will my permit take?

It varies by jurisdiction and scope. The largest controllable factor is whether the first submission is complete, which is the part that gets managed here.

Can you take over a filing somebody else started?

Yes. That is common, particularly where an application has stalled in objection.

What is the difference between an expediter and what you do?

An expediter files applications and manages the administrative process. They cannot seal a drawing, cannot perform the engineering, and cannot answer a technical objection on their own authority. A licensed professional engineer can do the analysis, seal the drawings and make the filing. On a project with any engineering content, that removes an entire handoff from the process.

Can you take over a filing that has stalled?

Usually, yes. The first step is reading the objections and the file to understand why it stalled, which is often a different reason from the one on the objection sheet. Depending on what is found, the route may be responding to the outstanding comments or refiling on a cleaner basis.