Inside the Building Department with Steve Ferris

Steve Ferris, former Director of Development Services for the City of Denver, takes us inside a building department to explain what really happens to permit applications.

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What actually happens to your permit application after you submit it? For most builders and developers, the building department is a black box. You submit your plans, wait for weeks or months, and hope for approval. Steve Ferris is here to pull back the curtain.

In this inaugural episode of Permission to Build, Steve Ferris—a veteran of the permitting world with over 30 years of experience and former Director of Development Services for the City of Denver—offers a rare perspective from the other side of the permitting process.

Steve walks through the lifecycle of a permit application from intake to approval. He explains how applications are routed to different review disciplines, how plan reviewers prioritize their workload, and what triggers correction notices versus outright rejections. Understanding this workflow is critical for anyone who wants to improve their permitting outcomes.

The conversation dives deep into common mistakes that applicants make—incomplete submissions, missing calculations, drawings that don’t match the scope of work described in the application. Steve explains how these seemingly small errors can add weeks to the review process as applications bounce back and forth between the applicant and the department.

Steve also discusses the human side of building departments. Plan reviewers are often overworked and under-resourced, juggling hundreds of applications at any given time. Understanding their perspective—and making their job easier with clear, complete, well-organized submissions—is one of the most effective strategies for faster approvals.

One of the most illuminating parts of the conversation is Steve’s discussion of how different jurisdictions handle the same types of projects differently. What flies through review in one city might require extensive additional documentation in another. This variability is one of the biggest challenges for multi-site operators, and Steve offers practical advice for navigating it.

Steve also shares his vision for how technology can transform building departments from the inside—making processes more transparent, reducing review times, and improving outcomes for both applicants and the communities that building codes are designed to protect.

For anyone involved in construction, development, or architecture, this episode is a must-watch primer on how to work with—not against—the building department.