DIARIO

Notas sobre permisos, código y oficio.

Escritura sencilla sobre el trabajo en sí — lo que aprendemos en los ciclos de revisión, cómo avanza la adopción del código estatal, y las decisiones prácticas que convierten un boceto en un permiso emitido.

Las entradas están publicadas en inglés por ahora. Estamos trabajando en traducciones.

25 de mayo de 2026
Washington just overtook California in ADU permits. HB 1345 is about to widen the gap.
California has led national ADU permit growth for five years. In 2026 it lost the lead to Washington. The drivers are HB 1337 (urban ADUs, already in effect), HB 1345 (rural ADUs, effective June 11), and a permit-streamlining culture at the county level that California cities can't match.
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25 de mayo de 2026
California restaurants can now get TI permits in 20 business days. Most operators don't know it yet.
AB 671 went into effect on January 1, 2026 and quietly rewrote how restaurant TI permits clear California building departments. Two changes: a hard 20-business-day review deadline (with auto-approval if blown), and an optional private-certification pathway. Operators we've talked to in May have heard of neither.
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24 de mayo de 2026
How long does a restaurant TI permit actually take? We tracked 18 across 5 AHJs.
We tracked 18 restaurant TI permits across 5 AHJs in 2025. The fastest cleared in 11 business days. The slowest took 88. The "12-week average" trade press cites is the wrong frame — what actually predicts your timeline is the AHJ + the cuisine + the lease state, not an industry-wide number.
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23 de mayo de 2026
The restaurant lease clause that saved an operator $40K — and the one every operator forgets.
A Phoenix wok operator walked into a North Phoenix retail shell and signed a lease. The previous tenant's pizza hood was wrong for his cuisine — $40K of work to convert. He could have made the landlord pay for $30K of it. He didn't, because his lease was missing two paragraphs every restaurant operator should know cold.
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9 de mayo de 2026
Henderson, Nevada has the fastest commercial TI permits in the West. Here's how it actually works.
A 2,800-square-foot dental office TI in Henderson, Nevada cleared in 24 hours last March. Same scope, same permitting timeline in Phoenix DSD: 47 days. The difference is a Henderson program most West Coast developers have never heard of.
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8 de mayo de 2026
Phoenix's 'expedited permit' is usually slower. We pulled the data.
A general contractor told me last March that paying for the expedited permit at Phoenix DSD was the only way to clear plan-check fast. We pulled 14 months of public records to check. The data says the opposite.
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6 de mayo de 2026
Cleveland's three historic districts where permits actually move fast
Cleveland has 26 historic districts. Most add a 4-6-week certificate-of-appropriateness review before the building permit. Three districts don't — they actually permit faster than non-historic Cleveland. The reason is in how the design-review committee meets.
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2 de mayo de 2026
Austin tree preservation cost a developer $94,000. The fix is one survey, done in week one.
A South Austin infill developer planned a 14-unit subdivision around a buildable lot — only to discover, after the schematic and entitlement work were already complete, that two heritage pecans on the property triggered Austin's tree-preservation ordinance. The survey that would have caught it costs $1,800.
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30 de abril de 2026
Why your neighbor's Tempe ADU cleared in four weeks and yours might take twelve
Two clients filed ADU permits with the City of Tempe within a month of each other. One cleared in 28 days. One cleared in 84. Same drafter, same building department, same code edition. Here's what was different.
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26 de abril de 2026
California's pre-approved ADU plans look like a shortcut. They're slower in 6 of 8 cities.
Pre-approved ADU plans were supposed to slash permit timelines. The reality from 18 months of California ADU work: in six of the eight cities offering them, the pre-approved path was slower than custom plans. The reason is administrative, not technical.
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22 de abril de 2026
California's 60-day ADU rule doesn't mean what you think it means
California Government Code 65852.2 says cities have to issue an ADU permit within 60 days of a complete application. That sentence is doing a lot of heavy lifting. After 14 California ADU permits, here's what we've learned about how cities use the loopholes.
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22 de abril de 2026
What is a permit set, and what does it actually include?
A permit set is the package of architectural drawings a building department needs to issue a permit. Here is what is in one, what is not, and why getting the format right is the difference between a 14-day permit and a 90-day permit.
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20 de abril de 2026
I read 200 r/Phoenix permit posts. The same five mistakes come up every week.
I scrolled 200 Reddit posts about Phoenix-area building permits, looking for what actually goes wrong. Five recurring mistakes show up in over 80% of the posts. Here they are, in order of frequency.
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15 de abril de 2026
I called every Phoenix-area building department. Here's what they told me about your remodel.
Last month I asked twelve Phoenix-area building departments the same question, posing as a homeowner planning a 600-square-foot kitchen-and-bath remodel. The answers ranged from "two weeks, walk in any morning" to "we're booked through July." Here's the rundown.
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12 de abril de 2026
Florida's 2026 hurricane wind zone update changed which Miami neighborhoods can build cheaply
February 2026 brought updates to Florida Building Code 8th Edition that redrew Miami-Dade County's wind-borne-debris (WBD) zones. The changes are subtle on paper but they shifted impact-window requirements for several neighborhoods. Here's the new map and what it means for project costs.
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8 de abril de 2026
Houston has no zoning. So why does it take longer to permit than Dallas?
Houston is the only major U.S. city without traditional zoning. You'd expect that to make permits faster than Dallas, where zoning enforcement adds friction. Our 2025 data shows the opposite. Here's what Houston has that Dallas doesn't.
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8 de abril de 2026
ADU vs. addition: which permits faster, and why?
Adding 600-1,200 square feet to a single-family lot can go through plan check as either an ADU or an addition. The two paths land in similar livable space but very different permit timelines. Here is the comparison.
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4 de abril de 2026
I priced an engineer's stamp at 12 firms across 6 states. The variation is wild.
I priced out a structural-engineer review and stamp for the same 1,800-square-foot residential addition at 12 different firms across Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas, Ohio, and New Mexico. The quotes ranged from $1,800 to $9,400 — for the same scope. Here's why.
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28 de marzo de 2026
We modeled 30 multifamily permits. The 'mid-rise penalty' costs you 6 weeks every time.
Across 30 multifamily projects we tracked in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Cleveland, and Austin, 4-story residential buildings averaged 64 days to permit. 5-story buildings averaged 102 days. The 38-day delta is structural — embedded in the IBC. Here's where it comes from.
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22 de marzo de 2026
We pulled 500 Phoenix DSD rejection comments. 12 mistakes account for 80%.
I pulled 500 Phoenix DSD plan-check correction lists from public records over a weekend. Coded every comment into categories. Twelve specific mistakes account for 80% of all rejection comments. Here they are, in order of frequency.
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18 de marzo de 2026
How we shipped a 14-day permit set for a Phoenix restaurant TI
A 2,400-sqft ground-floor restaurant TI in central Phoenix went from kickoff call to issued permit in 14 business days. Here is what we did differently — and what most permit sets miss that adds 4–6 weeks.
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15 de marzo de 2026
Most ADU lenders won't tell you this: the appraisal happens before the permit.
A homeowner walked me through the timeline of her ADU construction loan last month. The appraisal happened while her permit was still in plan-check — meaning the loan amount was set on a project that hadn't been approved yet. Three weeks later, plan-check made her change the design. The loan amount didn't change. She had to make up the gap in cash.
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Notas sobre permisos, código y oficio.

Washington just overtook California in ADU permits. HB 1345 is about to widen the gap.

California restaurants can now get TI permits in 20 business days. Most operators don't know it yet.

How long does a restaurant TI permit actually take? We tracked 18 across 5 AHJs.

The restaurant lease clause that saved an operator $40K — and the one every operator forgets.

Henderson, Nevada has the fastest commercial TI permits in the West. Here's how it actually works.

Phoenix's 'expedited permit' is usually slower. We pulled the data.

Cleveland's three historic districts where permits actually move fast

Austin tree preservation cost a developer $94,000. The fix is one survey, done in week one.

Why your neighbor's Tempe ADU cleared in four weeks and yours might take twelve

California's pre-approved ADU plans look like a shortcut. They're slower in 6 of 8 cities.

California's 60-day ADU rule doesn't mean what you think it means

What is a permit set, and what does it actually include?

I read 200 r/Phoenix permit posts. The same five mistakes come up every week.

I called every Phoenix-area building department. Here's what they told me about your remodel.

Florida's 2026 hurricane wind zone update changed which Miami neighborhoods can build cheaply

Houston has no zoning. So why does it take longer to permit than Dallas?

ADU vs. addition: which permits faster, and why?

I priced an engineer's stamp at 12 firms across 6 states. The variation is wild.

We modeled 30 multifamily permits. The 'mid-rise penalty' costs you 6 weeks every time.

We pulled 500 Phoenix DSD rejection comments. 12 mistakes account for 80%.

How we shipped a 14-day permit set for a Phoenix restaurant TI

Most ADU lenders won't tell you this: the appraisal happens before the permit.