What Plans Do You Need for a Shop or Garage Permit in Spokane County? Site Plan Checklist, Engineering and Review Times (2026)

Most shop and garage permits in Spokane County don't get stuck on the building itself. They get stuck on paperwork: a site plan missing a setback, a pole building outside the County's prescriptive limits with no engineering, or a PDF the portal won't accept. Here's what Spokane County and the City of Spokane actually ask for, how long review takes once your application is complete, and what slows it down.

First, figure out who issues your permit

• Unincorporated Spokane County, Rockford and Spangle: Spokane County Building and Planning takes the application. The County says it accepts online applications for those three areas
• City of Spokane: the City's Planning and Development department reviews new construction and accessory buildings inside city limits. The City warns that a "Spokane" mailing address doesn't mean you're inside city limits, and points owners to the County's SCOUT property dashboard to check
• Other cities: Spokane Valley, Liberty Lake, Cheney, Airway Heights, Deer Park, Medical Lake and the rest run their own building departments, so check with that city first

What counts as an exempt building

Spokane County's permit exemption list (BP-25) lets you skip a building permit for a one-story detached accessory building used as a tool or storage shed, playhouse or similar use, up to 200 square feet. A shop, garage, pole barn or metal building bigger than that needs a permit. For farm buildings, see our guide to ag building permits in Washington, and for the jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction rules, our shop and pole barn permit guide.

What Spokane County wants for an accessory structure

Spokane County's residential permit handout (BP-06) lists what each project type must include. For a new accessory structure, plan on:

• Site plan
• Foundation plan
• Floor plan
• Cross sections
• Structural or engineering documents where applicable, and the County specifically calls out pole buildings
• Energy compliance forms if the building will be heated

The site plan checklist

This is the sheet that trips up the most people. The County's checklist says a site plan must always show:

• Property information: address, parcel size and parcel number
• Scale: labeled, at a minimum of 1 inch = 20 feet
• A north arrow
• Property lines with dimensions, labeled P/L
• Structures: new and existing, their dimensions, use, and the distances between them
• Setbacks: distances from every property line to every proposed and existing building
• Streets and right-of-way: names and locations of streets that access or border the lot
• Utilities: existing and proposed water, sewer, septic systems and wells
• Parking: numbered spaces with surface material and dimensions

For new construction or any land disturbance, the County also wants the distance to critical areas and buffers (shorelines, wetlands, streams, steep slopes, flood zones and habitats) on your lot and neighboring lots, plus easements and existing and proposed driveway access. Setback numbers by zone are in our property line setback guide.

Pole buildings: when you need engineering

Spokane County's pole building brochure (BP-14) gives a typical cross-section owners can fill out and submit, but only inside firm limits:

• Truss span: no more than 36 feet
• Floor area: no more than 3,000 square feet, lean-tos included
• Snow load: no more than a 43 psf ground snow load (30 psf roof snow load)

Bigger, wider or heavier-snow buildings need engineered plans. That matters because the County lists 30 psf as its basic minimum snow load and notes some areas reach far higher, so check your parcel on the SCOUT snow-load map before assuming the brochure fits. Our snow load guide walks through it.

Metal buildings (PEMB)

A pre-engineered metal building comes with stamped building drawings and column reactions from the manufacturer, and the foundation has to be designed for those reactions. The County's handout puts structural and engineering documents on the accessory structure list, so expect to submit the building package and the foundation design together. See PEMB anchor bolts and foundation design. Raven isn't tied to one manufacturer. We order from whichever has the fastest delivery, which helps line the steel up with the permit.

Inside the City of Spokane

The City's submittal guide for detached accessory structures (garages, pole buildings, carports and sheds) asks for:

• Stick-built garage: floor plan, footing and foundation detail, elevations or a cross section, and a portal framing detail where there's less than 4 feet of brace wall on each side of the garage door
• Pole-built garage: the City's standard pole building plans or engineered pole building plans, truss engineering, a framing plan and a footing detail
• A one-hour fire-rated exterior wall detail where a wall sits less than 5 feet from a property line, with Planning approval
• Site plan: address, property lines and dimensions, north arrow and scale, every structure with distances to property lines, the main driveway, street and alley names, and curb-to-property-line dimensions

File rules that bounce applications

Spokane County's electronic submittal rules are strict:

• PDF only, at least 300 DPI, with security settings that allow markup
• One combined PDF for the plans, landscape, all sheets the same size, at least 11 by 17 inches, and bookmarked
• Supplemental documents (calcs, truss packages, energy forms) as separate, individually named PDFs
• No "Not for Construction" sheets
• Readable scale: site plans at 1 inch = 20 feet or larger, and floor plans, elevations and sections at no less than 1/8 inch = 1 foot
• Revisions need the County's amendment form, a response letter to every comment, a complete new plan set, and changes clouded with a delta

The City of Spokane has its own electronic file standards: PDFs, plans in one landscape file with space left for approval stamps, bookmarks and set file names.

How long review takes

Once an application is complete, Spokane County's posted first-review goals (reviewed August 2024) are:

• Additions and detached accessory buildings: 10 business days
• New single-family homes, duplexes and townhomes: 14 business days
• Retaining walls, grading, decks and similar: 5 to 10 business days
• Trade permits (mechanical, plumbing, like-for-like reroof or siding): 1 to 2 business days
• Plan revisions to an issued permit: 2 to 3 business days
• Commercial new buildings and additions: 21 business days

The County stresses these are goals, not guarantees, and says resubmittals usually review faster. Projects that need environmental review under SEPA have to allow at least a three-week comment period.

In the City of Spokane, the posted residential timeline (new single-family homes and duplexes) is currently about 4 weeks to first review comments, with 10 days for revisions. Check the City's live permit timeline page before you plan around it.

For the full build schedule, steel delivery included, see how long it takes to get a metal building.

What slows a permit down

Spokane County's own list of delays includes:

• Incomplete applications and plans missing required details
• SEPA checklists that don't fully describe the project
• Special inspection contracts not completed
• Zone changes, variances or other land-use steps that must finish before the permit issues
• Not allowing enough time, as in "Can I get my permit tomorrow?"

After you're issued

• Print the approved plans: the County requires the permit and approved plans printed at the same sheet size as the PDF and on site for every inspection
• Pole building inspections: a hole inspection before the holes are filled, then framing and final inspections before the building is used
• Electrical, plumbing and mechanical are separate permits, so plan those with your shop

Want us to handle it?

We build metal buildings, pole buildings and the concrete under them across Spokane County, and we line up the drawings, foundation design and site plan details before we pour. Installed metal and pole buildings run about $60-75 per square foot, not including electrical, plumbing or utility hookups, which are extra. Call 509-350-2016 or request a free quote.

Sources

• Spokane County BP-08, Permit Processing Time Savers and Timelines (PDF)
• Spokane County BP-06, Residential Building Permit Application Requirements (PDF)
• Spokane County BP-25, Permit Exemptions (PDF)
• Spokane County BP-14, Pole Buildings (PDF)
• Spokane County Electronic Submittal Requirements (PDF)
• Spokane County, Ready to Apply for a Permit?
• Spokane County Building and Planning FAQ (snow load)
• City of Spokane, Residential Services
• City of Spokane, EDR Permit Timeline
• City of Spokane, New Accessory Structure Detached EDR Guide Sheet (PDF)