What Your BC Building Permit Drawings Need to Include

One of the most common reasons a building permit application gets rejected in BC is an incomplete drawing set. Not because the design is wrong, but because the drawings don’t show everything the permit office needs to see. Understanding what’s required upfront saves time, money, and the frustration of a resubmission.

Here’s a practical breakdown of what a residential building permit drawing set typically needs to include in British Columbia.

The Core Drawing Sheets Required for BC Residential Permits

While specific requirements vary by municipality, a standard residential permit set in BC includes the following:

• Site plan: Shows the property boundaries, the footprint of the proposed building, setbacks from all property lines, existing structures, driveways, and any easements. The site plan must be drawn to scale and include legal lot dimensions. This is often the first thing the permit office reviews.
• Floor plans: Dimensioned floor plans for every level: basement, main floor, upper floors, and any mezzanine areas. Room labels, door and window locations, and wall dimensions must be clearly shown. Structural elements like beams and posts need to be indicated.
• Exterior elevations: All four sides of the building, drawn to scale, showing the finished exterior appearance, window and door locations, roof pitch, and finished grade. Some municipalities also require a perspective or 3D view for design review purposes.
• Building sections: Cross-sections cut through the building showing floor-to-ceiling heights, insulation locations, and how the structure relates to grade. These are especially important for any habitable basement spaces.
• Foundation plan: Shows the foundation type (slab, crawlspace, full basement), dimensions, footing sizes, and any drainage provisions. Engineered foundation drawings may also be required depending on the site conditions.
• Roof plan: The roof plan shows ridge lines, valleys, overhangs, and drainage direction. Often combined with the upper floor plan but sometimes submitted separately.
• Window and door schedule: A table listing every window and door by size, type, glazing specifications, and energy performance rating. BC’s energy code requirements mean this schedule needs to include U-values and solar heat gain coefficients.

Energy Efficiency Documentation

BC’s Step Code requirements mean that most new residential construction now requires energy compliance documentation alongside the drawing set. Depending on the municipality and the step level required, this may include a completed energy compliance report, mechanical system specifications, and insulation R-values clearly shown on the building sections.

This is an area where incomplete submissions frequently get bounced back. Your drawing set needs to demonstrate code compliance, not just describe it.

When You Also Need an Engineer

Certain elements of a residential project require engineer-stamped drawings in addition to the architectural set. These include:

• Any structural element that falls outside prescriptive code (large open spans, heavy timber, complex rooflines)
• Retaining walls over a certain height
• Projects on sloped sites or poor soil conditions
• Some secondary suite conversions where load-bearing walls are being modified

Your permit drawings need to clearly coordinate with any engineer-stamped documents. Inconsistencies between the architectural and structural drawings are a common reason for permit delays.

Municipality-Specific Requirements in the Fraser Valley

Each city and district in BC has its own submission checklist and review process. The City of Chilliwack, the District of Mission, the City of Abbotsford, Langley Township, and Langley City all have different expectations for how drawings are formatted, what scale they must be drawn at, and what supplemental documentation is required.

If you’re submitting to a municipality you haven’t worked with before, it’s worth a phone call to the building department before you submit, or work with a drafting firm that already knows their requirements.

How to Avoid a Resubmission

The fastest way to get your permit approved is to submit a complete, coordinated drawing set the first time. That means every sheet is internally consistent (dimensions on the floor plan match the elevation, the section shows what the plan indicates), all required sheets are included, and the drawings are formatted to the municipality’s standards.

Resubmissions add weeks to your timeline. For a builder managing a schedule, that’s a real cost.

At Rexford, we’ve been producing permit drawing sets across BC and Alberta for years. We know what each municipality’s permit office looks for, and we write our drawings accordingly. If you have a project that needs permit-ready drawings, we’re happy to talk through the scope.