Your ADU Permit Is Approved If the City Misses 60 Days

You submitted the ADU plans in March. It is now August. Every few weeks someone at the counter says it is still in review, and each time you accept it, because what else is there to do? There is something else to do. California puts the city on a clock for accessory dwelling units, and the penalty for blowing it is not a scolding — it is your permit.

The short answer: a permitting agency must approve or deny a complete ADU application within 60 days, and if it does not, the application is deemed approved (§ 66317). Before that, it has 15 business days to tell you in writing whether your application is complete — and missing that deadline makes the application complete by default.

Key numbers

First: it is a ministerial permit, not a discretionary one

An ADU permit application must be considered and approved ministerially, without discretionary review or a hearing (§ 66317(a)(1)). That matters more than the word suggests. Ministerial review means staff check your plans against objective standards — numeric or fixed measures like heights and setbacks — using checklists, with no judgment call and no hearing where neighbors speak.

The state is explicit about what falls on the other side of the line. Standards requiring independent judgment and open to multiple interpretations — "privacy," "compatibility with neighboring properties," "design harmony," "similar architectural style," "high quality materials" — are subjective and may not be imposed on ADU development (ADU Handbook). If a comment on your plans reads like an opinion, that is worth pushing back on in writing.

Ministerial review also carries an environmental consequence: ADUs and JADUs approved ministerially are statutorily exempt from CEQA, so no environmental study should be delaying your file.

The completeness clock: 15 business days

A permitting agency must determine whether an ADU application is complete and provide written notice of that determination not later than 15 business days after receiving it (§ 66317(a)(2). This is a recent tightening — SB 543, effective January 1, 2026, replaced the longer general timeline with this ADU-specific one (ADU Handbook addendum, SB 543).

Four rules ride along with it, and each one closes a common stalling tactic:

• If the agency finds the application incomplete, the written notice must include a list of the incomplete items and a description of how to make the application complete.
• After receiving that notice, you may cure the listed items.
• On reviewing your cure, the agency may not require an item that was not on the list it gave you. No moving targets.
• If the agency does not make a timely determination, the application — original or resubmitted — is deemed complete.

That last point is the one to note in your calendar. The 60-day approval clock runs from receipt of a completed application, and an agency that never rules on completeness cannot argue the file was never complete.

The 60-day clock, and what stops it

If the local agency has not approved or denied the completed application within 60 days, the application shall be deemed approved.

The agency must approve or deny within 60 days from the date it receives a completed application, where there is an existing single-family or multifamily dwelling on the lot (§ 66317(a)(3)). Two things legitimately affect it:

• You asked for time. If the applicant requests a delay, the 60-day period is tolled for the length of the delay. Requesting more time is allowed, and it is worth being deliberate about, since it pauses your own protection.
• There is no house yet. Where the ADU application is submitted alongside an application for a new single-family or multifamily dwelling on the lot, the agency may delay acting on the ADU until it acts on the primary dwelling — but the ADU must still be considered without discretionary review or a hearing.

A denial is not a shrug either. If the agency denies, it must return, within the same period, a full set of comments listing the items that are defective or deficient and describing how you can remedy them. And no local ordinance, policy or regulation other than an ADU ordinance consistent with state law may be the basis for delaying or denying the permit.

If you are denied or found incomplete, the agency must provide a written appeal process to its governing body — or, at its option, the planning commission, or both — and must issue a final written determination not later than 60 business days after receiving your written appeal. Allowing appeals to both bodies does not extend that period.

Three faster or parallel tracks

Preapproved plans — 30 days. Every local agency was required to develop a program for the preapproval of ADU plans, to accept plan submissions from any party, and to post approved plans and the applicant's contact information on its website. Where you use a plan preapproved by that agency or another agency in the state, or a plan identical to one in a previously approved detached-ADU application, the agency must approve or deny within 30 days — the plans must be valid within the current triennial California building standards code cycle (ADU Handbook, AB 1332).

Coastal zone — concurrent, not sequential. A local government must approve or deny a coastal development permit for an ADU within 60 days of receiving a completed application, and may not hold public hearings on it. That review runs concurrently with the ADU permit review, not after it. Where the local government has no certified local coastal program, the California Coastal Commission takes on the same 60-day duty (§ 66329).

Older unpermitted units. A local agency shall not deny a permit for an unpermitted ADU constructed before January 1, 2020 because it violates building standards, state ADU law, or a local ADU ordinance — unless it finds that correcting the violation is necessary to protect health and safety, or the building is substandard (ADU Handbook).

Before you occupy it

Approval is not the last step. A property owner must obtain a certificate of occupancy from the local agency before any residential occupancy of an ADU or JADU (ADU Handbook). One narrow exception now exists for disaster areas: where a county is subject to a state of emergency proclaimed on or after February 1, 2025 and the primary dwelling was substantially damaged or destroyed, the agency must issue the ADU's certificate of occupancy even though the primary dwelling has not received one, if the other requirements are met (ADU Handbook addendum, AB 462).

One more protection worth knowing while you wait: an agency may not deny an ADU permit over the correction of nonconforming zoning conditions, building code violations or unpermitted structures that do not threaten public health and safety and are not affected by the ADU's construction (§ 66322. Old work elsewhere on the property is not grounds to hold up a new unit.

State ADU law sets these deadlines as a limit on cities, and local ordinances do not always match. If yours appears not to, the California Department of Housing and Community Development reviews local ADU ordinances for compliance — hcd.ca.gov is where to start.

Sources

• § 66317 — Ministerial approval and timelines (Government Code)
• § 66322 — Parking standards and denial limits (Government Code)
• § 66329 — Coastal development permits for ADUs (Government Code)
• Permit Applications and Permitting Agencies — 2025 California ADU Handbook (HCD)
• AB 1332 — Preapproved ADU plans (HCD)
• SB 543 — 2026 changes to ADU law (HCD addendum)
• AB 462 — Certificates of occupancy in emergencies (HCD addendum)