After years in real estate development, architecture, and navigating city permitting in Los Angeles, we saw a recurring, costly issue: The plan check process is broken and incomplete. Submitting plans to the city takes weeks or months, only to return with redlines or rejections. It’s a manual, inconsistent, and fragmented process split between zoning, structural, and MEP departments. But delays aren’t the only problem. Even when plans get approved, critical design conflicts often go unnoticed:
- Last-minute architectural changes that the structural engineer never saw
- Structural errors that city plan checkers missed
- Misapplied or underused zoning incentives that left value on the table
These oversights can lead to expensive corrections during construction or, worse, structural risks, delays, and failed inspections. In Los Angeles, where time kills deals and developers face razor-thin margins, even one missed mistake can mean losing the property. We built PlanChecker AI to solve this.
The Vision
We envisioned a virtual assistant that does more than check plans. It thinks like an entire design team and permitting office combined. PlanChecker AI is an intelligent platform that:
- Understands zoning codes, overlays, and state/local density bonuses
- Detects last-minute changes that slipped past city review
- Cross-checks structural calculations and flags unsafe or unsupported conditions for your engineer to review
- Identifies MEP conflicts and code violations
- Flags formatting issues, clearance gaps, annotation errors, and missing documentation
- Tells developers exactly what they can build, either by right or through incentive programs
It supports the entire development team, including developers, architects, engineers, contractors, and homebuilders, from concept to construction.
How It Works
PlanChecker AI uses a proprietary engine powered by AI, computer vision, and a regulatory codebase built city-by-city to:
- Instantly review architectural, structural, and MEP plans
- Cross-check with zoning regulations, building codes, fire and energy ordinances
- Cross-check load paths, seismic resistance, shear walls, joist spans, and structural calcs, and flag inconsistencies
- Analyze MEP routing, clearance conflicts, ventilation rules, and mechanical code
- Detect inconsistencies across plan sets (e.g., layout changes not reflected in structure)
- Deliver real-time redlines and compliance alerts before submission
- Recommend zoning bonus options (TOC, SB9, AB 2097, etc.) based on the site
What Makes Us Different
- Flags what the city missed
The AI flags last-minute revisions and inter-discipline errors that often go unnoticed by city reviewers. - Flags structural inconsistencies
The AI cross-checks calculations and design logic and flags conditions for your structural engineer to confirm. - Tells developers what they can build
From by-right entitlements to bonus programs, PlanChecker AI interprets local zoning and incentive layers in seconds. - Multidisciplinary, real-world intelligence
Trained on thousands of redlines and plan sets, our AI checks structure, MEP, zoning, ADA, energy, fire safety, and more in one pass. - Nationwide scalability
With a modular code engine, we can support any U.S. city or county and tailor it to local requirements. - A partner to the entire team
PlanChecker AI supports developers, contractors, and homebuilders by de-risking the design, clarifying entitlement potential, and accelerating approvals.
Our Mission
To eliminate permitting delays and construction risks by making plan review intelligent, integrated, and instant. In Los Angeles and across the U.S., the permitting bottleneck has slowed housing production and increased costs. PlanChecker AI is changing that by:
- Helping developers submit stronger plans, faster
- Catching structural and coordination issues before they reach the job site
- Supporting contractors and homebuilders with accurate, compliant construction docs
- Guiding projects through zoning and incentive programs to maximize yield
- Reducing rework, risk, and delays so more homes get built at a lower cost
PlanChecker AI is the future of permitting, compliance, and development intelligence. And that future is already being built.