Rand Soellner's post describes the process available here in San Bruno. Interestingly, the City credits me with having introduced them to the process of submitting PDF's. Their plan check consultant reviews the drawings and calculations on their own system and returns marked-up PDF's to the author, usually the architect. When they are ready to issue a building permit, they make a permit set of prints from the PDF as part of the permit fee for the builder who keeps it on the jobsite for the inspectors. I regularly make two sets of PDF's; the one with my flattened signature is submitted to the City with our agreement that they make only the permit set from it. There are other cities on the SF peninsula who do something similar, but there are several who have yet to catch up. It's a remarkably easy, energy-conservative and inexpensive process, and I always encourage neighboring cities...the ones who still require full-size sets of prints, reports, etc....to look into this process for their own sake.
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Robert George FAIA
Robert S. George, FAIA, Architect
San Bruno CA
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