The Digital Plan Room, the county's electronic document review module, opened for business in April 2020. It is seamlessly integrated into the Citizens Access Portal, the entry point to online permit application submittals and other services. This new module results in a more efficient and faster plan review experience. At this time, online permit application submittals can only be made by Florida licensed contractors with an approved account.
Highlights
- Online submittal of all documents and plans for all permit types.
- Streamlines the plan review process among all county review disciplines by enabling a concurrent electronic review process.
- Automated digital signature verification of design professionals during the application submittal process. Third party signature certification is still required.
- Automated emails that will provide a link to the approved digital plans for printing/viewing. At the current time, contractors will still need to provide a printed copy of the approved plans and documents and have them available at the job site for inspections staff use. The contractor will also continue to print the Permit/Inspections Job Card for work site posting.
Training, FAQ and Help
- Digital Plan Room User Guide
- Digital Plan Room FAQ
- Citizen Access Portal (CAP) Account Registration Guide
- For help, call 941.743.1201 and press 5, or email CCTechSupport@CharlotteCountyFL.gov during regular business hours.
User Information
- Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are the known compatible internet browsers. Other browsers may be used but may cause issues for the user.
- All files must be in PDF format.
- All layers in the PDF must be flattened, including seals, signatures & notations.
- The size of any individual electronic file cannot exceed 500 MB.
- Every plan and document file must be named.
- Every plan and document must have the correct document type selected.
- Digital signatures are required. The Florida Administrative Code states that design professionals must have their own identity, digital seal and signature validated by a 3rd party Certificate Authority. Local professionals are known to be using DigiCert, Entrust, GlobalSign, IdenTrust, and VeriSign.
- Plan Review Cycles: Permit applications now have “Plan Review Cycles”. This means that plan changes or corrections to satisfy rejection comments can only be submitted all at the same time, and not one Review Stop (i.e. “Discipline”) at a time. This is because mid-cycle uploads of documents/plans are not permitted by the software plus it increases efficiency.
- Plan Sheet Numbers: Sheet numbers on a resubmittal must match exactly the original submittal (e.g. Sheet S-01 cannot be resubmitted as Sheet S 01)
- Arrange plans in landscape view.