Site Plan Engineering in Texas | PE-Stamped Site Plans & Surveys

Nearly every Texas building department requires a site plan with the permit application for new construction, additions, accessory structures, pools, and commercial build-outs. The plan must show the surveyed property lines, the building footprint, required setbacks, easements, driveway access, parking layout, and how stormwater will drain — and it must be stamped by a licensed engineer whenever grading, drainage, or utility design is included.

Change-of-use and occupancy permit applications also hinge on the site plan: parking counts, ADA-accessible routes, and fire-access lanes are all verified against it. A weak site plan is the single most common reason a Texas permit application bounces back in review.

Every accurate site plan starts with a topographic survey — and surveys are prepared by licensed surveyors (RPLS), not engineers. We coordinate the survey on your behalf or work with one you already have, then build the engineering on top of it: existing and proposed contours, building pad elevations, drainage flow lines, and utility connection points.

This division of labor matters for your permit. A site plan drawn from an old plat or guesswork gets rejected; a plan keyed to a current survey with engineer-designed grading clears review. If your project also needs elevation documentation for flood insurance or sits in a mapped flood zone, we prepare the FEMA-required certificate — and the full flood permitting process is covered by our flood zone permitting service.

Texas cities each enforce their own zoning rules, and they trip up more projects than engineering does. Setback distances, maximum lot coverage, impervious cover limits, tree preservation ordinances, and parking ratios vary by city — Austin caps impervious cover, many suburbs enforce strict tree ordinances, and older city lots have nonconforming setbacks that require variance strategy.

We check your lot against the applicable zoning code before design begins, flag anything that needs a variance, and design the site to maximize what's buildable within the rules. When a variance is genuinely needed, our supporting engineering documentation makes the case.

Commercial site plans carry heavier requirements: parking counts by use, accessible (ADA) routes from parking to entrance, fire apparatus access lanes, loading zones, stormwater detention, and full utility design. Building departments review these against their development codes, and reviewers reject packages with missing detention calcs or non-compliant parking geometries quickly.

Our commercial packages include the grading plan, drainage design, paving sections, utility plans, and the calculations behind them — engineered to the city's criteria manual and PE-stamped for submission. For the building's structure itself, see our commercial structural engineering service.

Residential site plans typically cost $1,500-$4,000 including grading and drainage design; commercial site plans run $5,000-$25,000+ depending on acreage, detention requirements, and floodplain involvement. Standard delivery is 1-3 weeks; rush service is available for permit deadlines.

Call (833) 598-1772 with your address and project type — we quote immediately and confirm exactly what your city will require.