City of San Diego Development Services Department

There’s certainly a reason the City of San Diego Developmental Services Department has a 2-star rating, the staff is incredibly rude. When I called to make an official noise complaint, per the lawful noise level codes of Sec. 59.5.0401, I was told “it’s a big project, did you expect it wouldn’t be loud?”. They are not professional, respectful, helpful, or sympathetic.

New Location, same Development Services. They are finally on a numerical system, but there are no Estimated wait times and every 2 seconds the intercom announces a new number. Which is really annoying, because even though you know you are probably hours away you can’t keep your ears from perking up or glancing at the screen. Hard to focus on a pod, which is necessary if you don’t want to nap or lose your mind. Yesterday, I waited all day from 10am-3 without being seen. Today, I got here at 730. Two permits haven’t been called for me and one Mechanical actually did so that’s an improvement. Next week, I’m hoping to upgrade this rating. There are a lot of good people working here and they do have a backlog of two weeks while they were closed to deal with.

I don’t often post reviews and never before for a City. I do want to thank Mr Mike Inerowicz, Traffic Engineer, for assistance he provided in acquiring a recent parking permit. He made a complicated process easy. Thanks Mike. Five stars were not enough to signify how much he helped us.

They no-showed our inspection for a gas meter. I guess we'll just go the weekend without hot water. Glad I paid $300 for a government worm to waste 3 hours of my day to look at the work an actual productive member of society completed.

Miss darcell at The front desk was so helpful and sweet and I really appreciate it. She went above and beyond to help me figure out my whole situation.

With the huge influx of solar building permits why didn't this department plan ahead and optimize the permitting process? I'm told I will have to wait weeks or maybe months just to get a permit and yet my neighbor can purchase a new heat pump HVAC system, have it installed and running in days. No new tech or structural changes associated with solar and both the city and SDGE will ultimately delay further with final inspections!

It is an absolute shame at how this city runs its building department. I am a local electrician and when dealing with electrical “inspectors” I am appalled at their lack of knowledge and qualifications. The city charges unbelievably high prices for permitting for new installs and then sends completely incompetent people to come “inspect”. The inspector literally told me all of them lack the proper training and knowledge to do their jobs and he passes installs based on how “clean” they look, but will say straight up I have no idea what I’m looking at. This is an absolute travesty, these people are responsible for inspecting jobs that can greatly affect human lives and property if not properly installed. It is an absolute fraud the city is perpetrating on the citizens of San Diego hiring un trained, un qualified persons to inspect local building practices and charging a premium price.