Surrey’s new digital tool aims to streamline residential building permit process
Published 2:30 pm Tuesday, March 17, 2026
Surrey city hall has launched a rapid digital compliance system tool aimed at streamlining the residential building permit process.
It’s called eCheck, and focuses on digital reviews of residential building permit applications that check for compliance with the Surrey Zoning Bylaw, Surrey’s general manager of planning and development Ron Gill explained in a report council received on March 9.
With eCheck, he said, all home designers in Surrey can pre-screen their plans to ensure zoning compliance before submitting a formal building application permit to city hall, thus dodging delays. Being able to make changes in advance also helps reduce “back-and-forth” during building permit review.
“Initial development of eCheck has focused on digital reviews of residential building permit applications that check for compliance with the Zoning Bylaw and currently includes the full suite of residential buildings in the R3 zone – the most common zone in Surrey – including single family, coach house, garden suite, duplex and houseplex,” Gill noted.
The eCheck tool was released to the public on March 10 after pilot-testing was done late last year and early this year.
“In this pilot testing, a group of 16 residential home designers were given access to eCheck to pre-vet their building permit submissions,” Gill reported. “During testing, over 100 submissions were processed with eCheck, providing confidence that this system is ready to launch publicly.”
Plans that are submitted with the help of computer-aided drafting (CAD) software can receive assessment reports potentially identifying zoning deficiencies within minutes.
Gill told council that in coming months more residential zones will be added to eCheck, including R1, R2, R4, R5, R6 and RA.
“This phased rollout strategy will allow staff to refine eCheck based on user feedback and operational data from the R3 launch as coverage is expanded,” Gill explained.
“Staff will also monitor the quality of pre-assessment and usage across home designers. Feedback from users will be actively solicited and incorporated into ongoing improvements, allowing staff to adapt the system to evolving needs and to maximize its benefits.”