Civil Pre-Permit Review for the Site Plan Reviewer's Checklist
Helonic is an AI construction drawing analysis platform for Civil Engineers doing Pre-Permit Review.
Site plan reviewers check spot elevations, slope analysis, and utility separations. Helonic checks the same items first.
What is pre-permit review for civil engineers?
Pre-permit review for civil engineers is the dimensional check of spot elevations, slopes, utility separations, and accessible routes before a site plan goes to the building department. The site plan reviewer at the AHJ will check these items by recomputing from the drawings; Helonic does the same recomputation first.
How does Helonic help civil engineers with pre-permit review?
Helonic computes accessible route slopes between every spot elevation along the route and flags non-compliant segments.
Spot-elevation accessible route analysis
Helonic computes accessible route slopes between every spot elevation along the route and flags non-compliant segments.
Utility separation verification
Horizontal and vertical separations between water, sewer, gas, electric, and communications checked against utility code requirements.
Stormwater drainage analysis
Drainage paths traced from contours and spot elevations; ponding areas identified.
Fire access verification
Fire department access road dimensions, hammerhead turns, and aerial apparatus access checked against IFC and local FD requirements.
What does civil plan check actually flag?
Civil site plans get returned for the same items across jurisdictions: ADA accessible route slopes computed from spot elevations, stormwater volume reconciliation between the SWMP and the grading plan, utility separation horizontal distances, fire access road dimensions, and ADA-accessible parking layout. Helonic checks every one against the drawing data.
How do civil engineers run pre-permit review?
Grading, utility, drainage, erosion control, SWMP all indexed.
Upload civil drawings and SWMP
Grading, utility, drainage, erosion control, SWMP all indexed.
Run dimensional analysis
Slopes, separations, dimensions all checked against code requirements.
Review by severity
Hard violations first, then documentation drift.
Resolve and re-run
Address findings, re-run before submission.
What issues does Helonic catch in pre-permit review for civil engineers?
Helonic flags these pre-permit review issues when civil engineers review a set:
Accessible route from parking to entry: max slope 1:11.5 computed from spot elevations between stations 0+00 and 0+45 (1:12 max per ADA)
Water main at station 1+25 within 5'-0" of sanitary sewer - most jurisdictions require 10'-0" min horizontal separation
Stormwater drainage from parking lot directs to inlet I-2 but contour analysis shows ponding at low point not draining
Fire access road dimension 18'-0" but IFC Appendix D requires 20'-0" min for aerial apparatus
ADA-accessible parking space layout shows 8'-0" wide aisle for van-accessible space - ADA 502.3.4 requires 8'-0" + adjacent striping
Erosion control SWPPP doesn't show silt fence at downstream property line
Which Helonic features matter for pre-permit review?
Helonic includes Spot-elevation-based accessible route slope analysis when civil engineers run this workflow.
Spot-elevation-based accessible route slope analysis
Stormwater drainage path tracing from contours
Utility separation horizontal and vertical distance checks
Fire access road dimensional verification
ADA-accessible parking layout compliance
Erosion control SWPPP element coverage
What do practitioners say about pre-permit review for civil engineers?
“Civil engineers we talked with said site plan check correction notices were the most predictable category in their portfolio - same items every cycle, same dimensional checks the AHJ would run. They wanted automated dimensional verification before submission.”
Conversations with licensed civil engineers and PEs at site development firms.
What do civil engineers ask about pre-permit review?
Does it work with CAD or only PDF?
Helonic accepts PDF as the standard drawing input. Helonic is piloting CAD ingest with selected partners for higher-precision dimensional checks.
Can it handle wetland and floodplain regulations?
Helonic supports custom rule packs for wetland, floodplain, and other environmental regulation overlays per AHJ.
What about stormwater modeling?
Helonic checks drainage documentation and SWMP consistency. Helonic does not replace hydrologic modeling but verifies the modeling inputs are consistent with the drawings.
Manas Gandhi
Co-founder & CTO, HelonicManas is the co-founder and CTO of Helonic, where he leads engineering and AI research for construction drawing analysis. He works directly with structural, MEP, civil, and fire protection engineers to translate the way they review drawings into AI systems that flag the issues that actually matter in the field. Before Helonic, he built machine learning pipelines for technical document understanding and has spent the last several years interviewing licensed design engineers and discipline leads to ground product decisions in real practice rather than industry assumptions.
- AI for technical document understanding
- Cross-discipline coordination workflows
- Code compliance automation (IBC, NEC, NFPA, IPC, IMC, ASCE)
- Structural and MEP drawing review systems
How this page was researched: Conversations with licensed civil engineers and PEs at site development firms.
Last reviewed by Manas Gandhi · August 28, 2026
Other use cases for civil engineers
Pre-Permit Review for other roles
Should civil engineers use Helonic for pre-permit review?
Yes. Helonic catches the issues that matter most to civil engineers before they become rework. Upload your drawings for a free analysis.