City & County Portals — submit & resubmit

General E-plan submittal best practices

1. PDF, vector/CAD-exported beats scans. Where scans are allowed they're for supporting docs only (150–300 dpi, OCR'd).
2. Flatten layers & keep PDFs unsecured — reviewers must stamp, mark up and insert corrected pages (Palo Alto, Cupertino, Durham).
3. Sheet packaging differs by city — one-sheet-per-file (Cupertino), one combined bookmarked PDF (Campbell, Gilroy, Holly Springs), or separated by trade (Durham, Palo Alto). Never reuse one city's export setting for another.
4. Follow the exact file-naming convention the city publishes (Cupertino ≤25 chars no dashes; Palo Alto C#_Address_FILETYPE; Holly Springs ProjectName_Revision_ReviewNumber_Date).
5. Mind file-size caps where posted: Palo Alto ~400 MB/file, Durham 200 MB/file (hard reject), Fremont 500-page Scout / 1,000-page Accela.
6. Resubmittal = upload only the changed sheets + a written comment-response letter itemizing each comment, the fix, and the location ("See Plan" is not accepted at Palo Alto).
7. Bubble/cloud the changes on resubmittals (Chapel Hill, Palo Alto).
8. Signed/stamped sheets required; digital signatures generally accepted (stamps from Cycle 2 at Palo Alto).
9. Completeness-first review is now common in CA (Jan 2024 law) — submit a truly complete package or the clock doesn't start.
10. Plan-review fees are often due before routing (Raleigh, Fremont, Durham, Holly Springs).