Title 24 plan check, city by city

One Energy Code, nine different counters

The CF1R has to be approved before the permit is issued, and the office that approves it is your city, not the state. That is the reason for a page like this: the Energy Code is identical in all nine of these cities, and almost nothing about getting it across the counter is.

What follows consolidates what sits on my eight city pages — West Covina and Covina share one — how each takes a submittal, what first review each publishes, which clock is running, what each does with ADUs. Every line is a city-published process fact read off that city’s own site or handout, not a promise from me.

The part that is identical everywhere

Title 24 Part 1, Section 10-103 sets the sequence. The Certificate of Compliance goes to the enforcement agency and has to be approved by stamp or authorized signature before a building permit is issued, and §10-103(d)1 bars an agency from issuing one unless it determines in writing that the design complies with the Part 6 in effect on the application date. All nine cities require plans with the application, which triggers the second rule: the certificates have to be incorporated into the building design plans. That is why handout after handout says to copy the CF1R onto the sheets — a state requirement, not a local quirk. Where registration applies, only a registered certificate showing its registry number is acceptable at plan check.

Four different ways to hand over a plan set

• Portal only. Rancho Cucamonga runs Electronic Document Review; paper is not accepted and permits issue by email and the portal only. Glendale states nothing is submitted in person.
• Portal or counter. West Covina takes goPost or its Building counter Monday through Thursday, no longer email. Ontario uses Citizen Portal Access with a counter still listed. Riverside takes both, and says a portal submittal can expect the same turnaround schedule as any other — digital buys no speed there.
• Digital file, in-person handoff. Arcadia takes plans through EDGE, or hand-delivered on a flash drive at City Hall up to an hour before closing. Either way the plans themselves have to be digital.
• Email, or neither. Pomona takes electronic submittals by email rather than a portal, walk-ins Monday through Thursday, City Hall closed Fridays. Covina states it does not currently offer electronic plan check or permit issuance at all.

Pasadena is hybrid: review is concurrent as the city describes it, but its checklist calls for three scaled sets, 24×36 minimum, plus a labeled CD or flash drive, while page two of the same checklist describes an electronic submittal needing one hard copy for the job site. Rancho Cucamonga wants a single black-and-white PDF under 100 MB, never separate sheets, with T24 energy calculations filed under Documents/Reports rather than Plans/Drawings.

Read every published turnaround as an estimate

Five of the nine publish a general first-review figure and not one calls it a commitment — each is an estimate, an average or an up-to ceiling, and each assumes a complete submittal. Ontario, Pomona, West Covina and Arcadia publish none I could find.

Riverside is the one most often misread. Its numbers are a scope classification, not a residential schedule: over the counter same day, Tier 1 at 10 working days, Tier 2 at 20, resubmittals at same day, 10 and 10. ADUs are Tier 2, JADUs Tier 1, the Building Official can designate an unusually large or complex project Tier 3 at 25 working days, and staff reserve discretion to reclassify. Rancho Cucamonga publishes two figures that do not match, both current: 10 business days initial and 5 for resubmittals on the department page, roughly 10 to 15 working days in the EDR handout.

The clock is not the same clock

Two things move city to city: what starts the review clock, and how long the review stays alive. Glendale’s 8 to 10 weeks runs from the date plan-check payment is made, not from submittal. Rancho Cucamonga is the same — a completeness check, staff contact for the intake fee within two business days, then turnaround from formal submittal once payment is made. An unpaid plan set is not in review in either.

Expiration is the other clock. Arcadia’s plan review is void if the permit is not obtained within 180 days of the date of plan submittal, and West Covina’s permit application says the same. Letting one lapse matters more than it used to: a permit that expired with no construction under it cannot be replaced without a fresh written determination against the code in effect on the new application date, and the 2025 code governs applications filed on or after January 1, 2026.

ADU programs, and one ordinance still pending

Six run a pre-approved or standard ADU plan program and none work alike. Arcadia’s covers detached plans approved by the city after January 1, 2023, still needs a site plan, and per the program page cannot be used in the Very High Fire Severity Zone unless the plan was designed with alternative details for it. Ontario says a preapproved ADU plan check may take up to 30 days — a ceiling, not a review time. Riverside’s Dwell Riverside gets a 3-business-day initial review. Pasadena runs standard plans and answers the expedite question directly: they get the same 3 to 4 weeks as everything else. Glendale runs one as well. West Covina’s pre-approved page is still a placeholder with no plans on it. Two cities gate ADUs behind Planning first: West Covina’s 30-day Planning review, and Covina’s required OK to submit before Building takes the package.

Glendale is the only one of the nine with a local energy ordinance in play, an AC-to-heat-pump measure adopted in November 2025 covering air-conditioner replacements on single-family homes, duplexes and townhouses. The city says it takes effect only after review and approval by the California Building Standards Commission and the Energy Commission; December 18, 2026 was the date reported when the council adopted it, and Glendale is not on the CEC list of local ordinances approved to exceed the 2025 code. Pending, not in force.

Title 24 is not a deferred submittal in any of them

Deferred submittal covers a portion of construction that cannot be adequately detailed on the approved plans because of variations in product design and manufacture — that is Riverside’s own definition, and compliance documentation does not fit it. Across all nine cities’ current handouts, checklists and forms, not one lists the CF1R or the energy calculations as deferrable, and Ontario goes further and bars deferring the photovoltaic and energy storage plans when the energy calculation requires them. The code’s one exception is narrow and gets over-read: on a residential alteration needing field verification where the city does not require plans with the application, the certificate is approved before final inspection instead of before the permit — the CEC manual names the HVAC change-out CF1R-ALT-02 as the case it was written for. That is the whole of it.

What does not change by city

My side of it. The rate below is the same in Covina as in Glendale — $99 for a first job with a new firm on homes under 3,000 square feet, back in 24 to 48 hours, then $150 flat per model in 3 business days. I am the documentation author and you stay responsible designer in all nine, and if an energy comment comes back I answer it. What the model has to hit does change, but by climate zone — a ZIP-code question, not a plan-check one.

Nine cities, compared

Every figure below is published by the city itself, on its own pages. Blank means the city publishes no number — not that review is fast or slow. Read the clock column carefully: it is not measuring the same thing in every city.

Last verified against each city’s own pages on 2026‑09‑02. Cities change these without notice — confirm anything you are scheduling against.

Prices

Flat fees, in writing before I start. No hourly, no bid package, no change-order games — the number on the quote is the number on the invoice.

One honest note

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