Absolutely!!!!

Over the years we have developed a process to help people get their homes permitted in a reasonable amount of time without undue headaches.  It is a process and permitting a home is not easy.   I’m sure that you have heard the horror stories from friends and neighbors dealing with the local jurisdiction and getting a home permitted.  

We are considered experts in the permitting field.  There are other professional building & professional companies that hire us to do to the permitting for them as they recognize our experience and expertise in this very critical stage of project development.

There are several recommendations that we have learned to share with our clients:

• Start your plans & permitting as far in advance of when you want to build as possible.

• Patience is critical, it’s not possible to predict exactly when your plans will be approved.  

• Go into it with your eyes open knowing that there are going to be hurdles but we’ll handle them together.  

When you are permitting a home, it isn’t just submitting and then someone takes a look at the plans and then decides if they want to approve them or if they want revisions, additional information, clarification, etc.  

Each City and County is unique, and each of them has different departments that review plans.   Then, within each of these different jurisdictions, various departments are looking for different information, and each Plan Reviewer has their own nuances of specific things they require and what they may have questions about on the plans.  

These are the typical departments that review plans in most jurisdictions:

Planning & Zoning

Building Department

Fire Department

Public Works Department

Geotechnical Department Review

Grading and/or Engineering 

There are other departments that we have dealt with in different jurisdictions as well:

Environmental Health

Roads & Airports

Environmental Planning

Encroachment & Driveways

Public Works

Street Addressing

Etc.

What it comes down to is that there is work to be done.  It takes a while to go through the different departments.  Yet, we can work with you to take these one bite at a time, we are in together.  

Our Experience in Permitting:

Going back in our files, the first plan our main permitter worked on was a tenant improvement and that was under the 2001 California Building Code.  We were then able to switch over to the 2007 California Building Code which was followed by the 2010, 2013, 2016, and the 2019 CBC.  Most recently we have worked with 2022 code.  

Now, starting January 1, 2026, the brand new 2025 C.B.C. has gone into effect and we will be able to work with that one too, just like all of the other ones we have worked with.  

We were there when they started requiring Soils Reports, Title-24 Energy Calculations, Fire Sprinklers, and CalGreen.  We were also working on projects when we seamlessly began working on Wildland Urban Interface Chapter 7A for high fire areas. 

The building code changes approximately every 3 years and we continue to evolve with the building code to make sure your process isn’t harder than it has to be.  

What Jurisdictions Have You Permitted Homes In?

Without going through the files we can list a number of jurisdictions off the top of our head that we have worked in over the years where permits were successfully issued (this is not an all-inclusive list):

City of Los Angeles

Los Angeles County

Santa Cruz City

Santa Cruz County

Napa County

Sonoma County

Kern County

Orange County

City of Villa Park

San Diego City

San Diego County

Santa Clara County

City of Fort Bragg

Inyo County

Merced County

Lake County

City of Oxnard

Ventura County

Santa Barbara City

City of Sebastopol

Santa Barbara County

San Mateo City

San Mateo County

Mendocino County

Contra Costa County

City of Pinole

City of Concord

City of Orinda

City of Martinez

San Juan Bautista County

Etc. 

We have successfully worked through the process with other agencies as well:

California Coastal Commission

Local Homeowner Associations

Historical Review Boards

Design Review Boards

Architectural Review Boards

Etc.

The point is that we have worked in many jurisdictions and agencies, we are up to the challenge of working with different ones.  In general, most cities and counties are just fine to work with, but getting through the red tape does require a fundamental understanding of permitting and patience.

Now in 2026 Where Are You Permitting Homes?

Here is a quick list of where some of our current projects are being permitted for in 2026:

Yolo County

City of Mountain View

Los Angeles County

Santa Clara County

City of San Jose

Santa Cruz County

City of Goleta

San Diego County

Mendocino County

City of Filmore 

San Mateo County

City of San Leandro

Etc.

How Do You Deal With This Starting Out?

We deal with it the right way!  Prior to designing the home or getting too far down the road we reach out to the Planning Department to verify if there are specific requirements that we should be aware of.  

Later on in the process, when we are getting ready to submit we are able to obtain most of the information from the City/County web-site but we usually check in with the Building Department to see what else they need, if there are outstanding questions that we have.  

Then we compile the plans in a comprehensive format.  We can either submit them electronically, or you can take the plans in and submit them manually, depending upon what that jurisdiction mandates as their process.  

Moving Forward:

While twice we have been so lucky as to get plans permitted the first time out, that is extremely unusual.  Typically, after the first submission, there are a couple of rounds of review where they issue plan check comments (sometimes even more, and occasionally only one round of review).  Yet, you should expect there to be plan check comments where they want more forms filled out, clarification, and other things added to the plans.  

One of the best things about a Factory Built Home, AKA “Modular” is that those plans are already approved at the state level so that part gets mostly taken out of the equation.   Building on-site also will generate plan check comments for the house itself but with a modular home that is pretty much done which does minimize the overall number of plan check comments.  

Permitting Services:

Permitting services are an optional service.  On occasion one of our clients is able to navigate the permitting process on their own and we are completely fine staying out of it.  Usually though, in this circumstance, the client gets back the plan check comments and is overwhelmed and then end up asking for a proposal for Permitting & Entitlement services so they don’t have to deal with it any longer.   

Here at California Modular Houses, Inc. our goal is to get you your home.  So, we do keep our costs to a minimum.   Typically, the charge is somewhere between $2,500.00 (our standard retainer) to $5,000.00 depending on how complicated the project is and what they come back with.  It is based on a fair hourly rate.  While we have expenses to cover, our goal isn’t to make money off of you for permitting so we do try to keep your permitting expenses to a minimum.  

For some perspective, twice over the last few years we have seen permitters provide proposals for $10,000.00 or more.  In one case the client paid for it before they met us….but we ended up having to do most of the work anyway.  In another, just recently in 2025 we were working on a project where we had everything in place except for one permit and the client got a proposal from a local to help with that one and it was exactly $10,000.00…for obtaining just one permit!  We made sure to protect our client and counsel them not to proceed with that and the cost was reduced by 80% and that home will hopefully be fully permitted here in January of 2026.