Guide

Responding to Austin residential plan review comments

This guide covers residential building plan review by the City of Austin Development Services Department. It summarizes the city’s published update instructions as read in November 2026. The city’s page is the authority: always check it, and the instructions on your Master Comment Report, before you submit.

Open the official City of Austin Residential Plan Review page

The Master Comment Report

• When a review has rejection comments, the city emails the applicant a Master Comment Report. It lists each reviewer’s comments and the reviewer’s contact details.
• If a comment is unclear, contact the reviewer named on the report directly. PermitReply cannot interpret comments for you.
• Your resubmittal is called an Update. Your first response is Update 1, the next Update 2, and so on. The city’s page notes that from the second update on, an invoice is issued with the Master Comment Report.

Responding to each comment

• The city asks for a brief narrative for each rejected comment describing how and where you addressed the comment, and an answer to all rejected comments, referencing any relevant code sections.
• Keep the original comment numbers and order so the reviewer can check each item quickly.
• Point to the exact location of the change: the sheet number, detail number or the supporting document and page.
• If you made no drawing change for a comment, say so plainly and explain why, for example where the information already appears in the plans.
• Write only what you actually did. Do not describe changes that are not on the plans.

Revised plans

• Highlight the changes that address the comments, for example with revision clouds.
• Submit the full set of plans, not only the revised sheets. The city recommends vector-based PDF files.
• Partial or informal updates are not accepted for review.

Submitting the Update

1. Combine your comment responses, the revised plans and any supporting documents into one single PDF file, as the city’s update instructions describe.
2. Submit it as an Update using the form linked from the city’s Residential Plan Review page.
3. Track the status in the Austin Build + Connect (AB+C) portal.

PermitReply produces only the response letter. It never submits anything to the city; combining the files and submitting the Update are up to you.

Sources

• City of Austin Development Services: Residential Plan Review (update submittal instructions and requirements)
• City of Austin: Residential building permits
• Austin Build + Connect (AB+C) portal

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