Expedited Commercial Plan Review

Customers interested in the Expedited Plan Review Program should submit a standard LDCP application in Accela Citizen Access and select the expedited option at the end of the online form. If a question on the application is answered in a way that meets any of the exclusion criteria, the expedited option will automatically be removed from the application. All standard plan review fees must be paid once the project passes gateway. Additional expedited review fees will only be charged once the project has been accepted into the program and must be paid before the second review cycle can begin.

Expedited Program Fee Schedule(PDF, 169KB)

Plans submitted for expedited review must pass a 3-business day gateway before regular plan review fees are assessed. The project is then distributed for its initial 15-business day review cycle where staff determines eligibility for expedited review cycles. Once accepted into the program, applicants will receive an email notification indicating that redline comments are available and that the expedited fee is due. Revised plans cannot be submitted until this fee is paid in full. Only review cycles two and three are expedited, so applicants are strongly encouraged to achieve plan approval by the end of the third cycle. If additional review cycles are required beyond the third, the project will continue under the standard 15-business day review timeline until plans are approved.

Comment meetings become available once a project is accepted into the program and the expedited fee is paid. There is no limit to the number of redline comment meetings a customer may request. To schedule a redline meeting, the $2,000 fee must be paid, and a properly formatted agenda must be provided. Redline comment meetings are currently offered as one-hour virtual sessions on Tuesday mornings at 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m.

• Projects in the Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ)
• Projects requiring North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) review
• Projects with interchange requirements or involving bridges
• Projects triggering a Traffic Impact Study (TIS)
• Projects involving pump stations or low-pressure sewers
• Projects that have not received preliminary Capacity Assurance Program (CAP) approval within 6 months of submittal
• Projects requiring Charlotte Water encroachments into railroad rights-of-way
• Projects located along the Rail Line

Additional reviews may be required before final plan approval is granted. These reviews may occur either prior to or concurrently with the construction plan review; however, they follow separate timelines and are not eligible for expedited processing. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• Street Exceptions, Variances, Administrative Amendments, Administrative Adjustments, Parking Reductions, ACRB Cases, Right-of-way Abandonments
• Floodplain Development Permits
• SWIM or PCCO Water Quality Buffer encroachments
• Disturbances to wetlands or jurisdictional channels requiring written approval from the NCDENR/DWQ and the USACE