About
About Permit Compass
Built by John Nolan. Founder, researcher, and the person you'll be talking to if you email support.
Why Permit Compass exists
A friend called me a few years ago, stressed out about a bathroom remodel in San Francisco.
She'd hired a contractor who quoted her $18,000 for the work. Then a permit consultant quoted her $3,200 just to figure out which permits she needed and file the paperwork. Twelve percent of her total budget spent on filling out government forms.
She wasn't wrong to consider paying it. SF permit rules are dense, contradictory, and change often. The idea that a homeowner could confidently navigate them alone is optimistic at best.
But that quote broke something for me. In San Francisco, the complicated permit landscape has created a whole industry of people who charge homeowners just to translate government forms. The information itself is public. The forms are downloadable. The rules are written down. The problem isn't secrecy. It's format.
So I built Permit Compass. Not because permit consultants are bad. They do great work on complex projects like new home construction and commercial jobs. But because a standard bathroom remodel shouldn't cost you $3,200 just to know what to file.
What the tool does
You answer six questions about your project. Permit Compass tells you exactly which permits you need, what they cost, how long they take, and what the inspection sequence looks like. Then it pre-fills the actual DBI application forms with your project details.
You pay $49 once. That covers your specific project plus 12 months of unlimited additional projects on your property.
It's not right for every situation. If you're building a new home from scratch or navigating a complicated commercial project, hire a permit expediter. They earn their fee on projects that complex. Permit Compass is built for the projects that shouldn't require a consultant but currently do. Kitchen remodels, bathroom remodels, ADU conversions, water heater replacements, deck work, and the other standard residential permits that most SF homeowners face at some point.
About me
I'm not a licensed contractor. I'm not a permit expediter. I'm not an attorney.
What I am is someone who built a tool that translates SF's permit rules from government-form language into plain English, using public data from SF DBI, SF Planning, and the ongoing PermitSF reform initiative.
I live in a small town outside San Francisco now, but I lived in the city for years before moving. That time gave me a real feel for how San Francisco actually works, and it left me with a genuine tie to the city. What I bring to this work today is friends and family in the SF real estate space, a background in building software tools that solve information-access problems, and enough time spent reading DBI Director's Bulletins to know where the friction points are.
If you're wondering why you should trust a permit tool built by someone who isn't a licensed permit professional, you should verify. Check the guidance against SF DBI's own materials. Cross-reference with your contractor. That's how good tools should work. Permit Compass earns its keep by saving you time, not by asking you to trust it blindly.
How Permit Compass stays current
SF permit rules change constantly. PermitSF has passed more than 20 ordinance packages since February 2025. DBI publishes Director's Bulletins regularly. Planning Department priorities shift with each administration.
Every week, I read the new updates from DBI, Planning, and the Mayor's office. Substantive changes get written up as commentary on the blog. Anything that affects the underlying rules gets updated in the tool. When your specific project is affected by a recent change, that shows up in your project plan.
The tool also auto-detects property-specific factors from the SF Assessor's data. Whether your property is in a historic district, the Coastal Zone, or a Special Use District, these change your permit path. Most tools don't tell you until it's too late.
Contact
Email: support@permitcompass.com. I read every message personally.
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nolandjohn. Happy to connect with realtors, contractors, architects, or homeowners with permit questions.
Feedback: if you used Permit Compass and something felt off, tell me. Reply to any confirmation email and it goes straight to my inbox.
If you're a realtor, contractor, or permit expediter with a suggestion for making the tool more useful to your clients, I want to hear it. Currently building the tool with real user input as the primary compass (pun intended).