About

What this is

A per-project status page for every large new-construction residential permit in San Francisco. Each project has its own URL, pulling live data from DataSF on where the permit is in plan check, which stations have approved, which are cycling on comments, and an estimated timeline to permit issuance based on historical comparable projects.

Data sources

• Building Permits — DataSF dataset i98e-djp9, filtered to new-construction residential permits with 10+ net-new units.
• Building Permit Addenda with Routing — DataSF dataset 87xy-gk8d, which records each review step at each review station on each permit. This is the heartbeat of the tracker.
• Dwelling Unit Completion — DataSF dataset j67f-aayr, for certificate of occupancy records.

How estimates work

Each permit has ~10 review stations (Building Code, Fire, Planning, Urban Forestry, etc.). For each station we compute the median, 25th, and 75th percentile of total days to approval observed in completed SF housing projects, bucketed by project size and approval pathway. The timeline estimate on each project page is the max of the station-level predictions plus a three-week administrative buffer.

This is a V0 model — empirical medians with no regression. Planned improvements: Kaplan-Meier survival curves per station, then a gradient-boosted regression using revision count, days-since-last-activity, and cross-station context as features.

Station status meanings

• Approved — most recent review result is Approved or Approved-Stipulated.
• Comments Issued — reviewer has sent back comments; waiting for a revision.
• Blocked — station has been through 5+ revision rounds and is still cycling on comments. Usually indicates unresolved design or compliance issues.
• In Review — currently with a reviewer; no verdict yet.
• Not Yet Routed — station is on the routing list but hasn't been activated.

Caveats

Timeline estimates are statistical projections, not guarantees. A project can slip dramatically past the pessimistic case if political, legal, or labor disputes intervene. Conversely, projects with aligned incentives and experienced teams routinely clear plan check faster than the 25th-percentile baseline.

DBI transitioned to Electronic Plan Review (EPR) for new housing projects on January 1, 2024. Pre-2024 projects used sequential paper-based review; post-2024 projects use concurrent review via Bluebeam. The "EPR Era" flag on each project page indicates whether the project's recent activity falls in the new era.

This site is not affiliated with the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection, SF Planning, or any developer, architect, or contractor.