When Maricopa County Planning & Development sends back corrections on your building permit, Arizona law protects you from endless review cycles—but only if you respond to every comment the first time. Arizona Revised Statutes §11-1605 limits each county department to one comprehensive corrections request during permit review, and any follow-up requests must stick to issues already raised.
One Comprehensive Request Per Department
A.R.S. §11-1605(G) allows a county to make one comprehensive written or electronic request for corrections during substantive review. If your permit needs approval from more than one county department—say, building and environmental health—each department may issue one comprehensive request. That cap applies to Maricopa County and every other county in Arizona.
The county can amend that comprehensive request once to add legal requirements it missed the first time, as long as it cites the legal authority for each new item. After that, the county can send supplemental requests only if you fail to resolve an issue from the original comprehensive request—and those supplemental requests must stay limited to issues already identified. The statute also permits communication between the county and you about the requests, so the county can clarify a comment or answer a question while you prepare your resubmittal.
What Happens After You Respond
Once you submit corrected plans, the county reviews them against the comment letter. If an issue from the comprehensive request still isn't resolved, the county can flag it again in a supplemental request. But if the county missed something the first time—a code section or detail it should have caught but didn't list—it can't raise that as a new issue in a second round unless it fits the one-time amendment for missed legal requirements.
That means an incomplete response can strand your project. If you leave a comment unanswered or submit a drawing that doesn't fully address what the county asked for, you've used up your chance to get that issue flagged again. The county can't send a second comprehensive request to point out what you missed.
Answer Every Comment
The one-request cap is why answering corrections means going through the comment letter line by line. If the county asks for a guardrail detail, a fire-separation note, and a window schedule, submit all three. If a comment isn't clear, call the reviewer before you resubmit—the statute allows communication about the requests, and a quick phone call can save you a resubmittal cycle.
Mark up your plans to show where each correction went. Reviewers appreciate a cover letter that lists the comment number, what the county asked for, and the sheet and detail tag where you addressed it. That helps the reviewer confirm you didn't skip anything, and it keeps the review moving.
We're a Phoenix firm that does drafting and permit plans; our drafting team works remotely, and we take projects in all 50 states. Every set opens with a code-analysis sheet, and if the city flags an error in our drawings, we fix it free. When you're ready to resubmit or start a new permit in Maricopa County, ask for a quote—we reply within one business day.