The single biggest driver of how long a Houston plat takes is not the size of the project — it is whether one person can sign it off or whether it has to reach a commission agenda.
Sec. 42-70 splits that cleanly. The director may approve Class I plats and development plats. Only the commission may approve Class II plats, Class III plats, general plans and street dedication plats — and any Class I or development plat the director refers up. That referral is not a matter of preference: Sec. 42-78(a) directs the director to approve a Class I or development plat if it complies with the chapter, and to refer it to the commission on a finding that it does not comply. Compliance decides which path the application takes.
Sec. 42-70 also contains a summary chart of this, and immediately warns that the chart is "intended for illustrative purposes only. In case of conflict between the chart and the text, the text shall prevail." Worth knowing that the code itself declines to stand behind its own summary table.
| Class I | Class II | Class III | Development plat | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director may approve | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Commission approval always required | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Commission required for a variance or special exception | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Commission required for a replat | N/A | Yes | Yes | N/A |
| Preliminary approval required | No | No | Yes | N/A |
| Approval valid for | 12 months | 12 months | 12 months | Until project completion |
| Extension available | Up to 12 months, unrecorded plats only, on the owner’s written request | Up to 12 months, unrecorded plats only, on the owner’s written request | Up to 12 months, unrecorded plats only, on the owner’s written request | N/A |
Who decides and how long it holds. The first five rows are every row of the summary chart in Sec. 42-70 — which the code itself labels illustrative, so the section text governs where the two differ. The last two rows come from Sec. 42-80.
Three separate deadlines govern the front half of the process, and only one of them is a duration — the other two are cut-offs you either make or miss.
Completeness comes first. Under Sec. 42-52 the director reviews every application for completeness before anything else happens, and returns an incomplete one with an explanation of the deficiency. Nothing in the schedule below starts until the application is complete, so "submitted" and "complete" are not interchangeable.
11:00 a.m. on the submittal date. Sec. 42-53(a) puts a complete application requiring commission approval on that meeting’s agenda only if it is filed by 11:00 a.m. on the submittal due date shown on the department’s annual calendar. What Sec. 42-53(a) does is guarantee the agenda for an application that makes the deadline; it does not say what becomes of one that misses it. Plan on the next cycle, but the section does not spell that consequence out.
Ten days for administrative plats. Sec. 42-53(d) requires the director to review and approve — or refer to the commission — a complete Class I or development plat application not later than ten days from submittal.
The calendar itself is not ad hoc. Sec. 42-53(b) requires the director to publish it at the department office and on the website, and Sec. 42-53(c) requires the commission to adopt the following year’s calendar on or before its first regularly scheduled meeting in December.
A commission that is not ready to decide can defer, and the ceiling is 30 days — but the point it runs from depends on the plat class, which is easy to miss.
For subdivision plats, Sec. 42-72, Sec. 42-73 and Sec. 42-74 each impose the limit in the same words: action is deferred to the next regular meeting, but not to exceed 30 days from the filing date. Read that carefully. The 30 days run from filing, not from the meeting at which the plat was deferred. A plat that reaches the commission late in its cycle has already spent much of its deferral budget before anyone deferred anything.
Development plats are measured differently. Sec. 42-75(a)(4) and Sec. 42-75(b)(3) defer to the next regular meeting but not to exceed 30 days from the date of initial commission consideration — from the meeting, not from filing. The ceiling is the same length and starts later, so a deferred development plat has more of its 30 days left than a subdivision plat in the same position.
Class III plats carry this twice over, because Sec. 42-71(a) requires the commission to act on them on a preliminary basis and on a final basis — two trips through the calendar, each with its own deferral exposure.
An applicant shall submit a request for extension of approval of a class II plat or a class III plat to the department pursuant to the subdivision plat submittal requirements of section 42-53(a) of this Code to allow the request for extension of time to be considered and acted upon before the expiration date of the subdivision plat. An applicant shall submit a request for extension of approval of a class I plat to the department not later the tenth day before the expiration date of the class 1 plat to allow the request for the extension of time to be considered and acted upon before the expiration date of the class I plat. Neither the commission nor the director shall consider any request for extension of approval after the original expiration date of a subdivision plat.
A Houston plat approval is not permanent. Under Sec. 42-80(a) and (b), a Class I, Class II or Class III approval is valid for 12 months, and an unrecorded plat can be extended on the owner’s written request by not more than 12 months from the original expiration date. Note what that limit is measured in: Sec. 42-80(a) and (b) cap the extension’s length, not the number of requests. Neither subsection says “once”. What makes the distinction largely academic is Sec. 42-80(d), below — nothing can be considered after the original expiration date, so the 12 months past that date is a ceiling however many requests reach it. A development plat is the exception: Sec. 42-80(c) makes its approval valid until the project it covers is complete.
The part to diary is Sec. 42-80(d), quoted above. It sets an earlier deadline for Class I plats — the request must be in no later than the tenth day before expiration — and then closes the door entirely for every class: neither the commission nor the director shall consider any extension request after the original expiration date. The bar is on consideration, not on filing, and that is the harder deadline of the two: Sec. 42-80(d) requires the request to go in early enough to allow it to be considered and acted upon before the expiration date. A request filed in time but reaching no agenda in time is worth nothing. There is no grace period and no late-filing provision anywhere in the section.
Sec. 42-80(e) states the consequence flatly: when approval expires, you submit a new subdivision plat and pay all applicable fees. The work is not tolled or credited — it starts over.
Doing the work first costs double. Sec. 42-54(b): unless the city fee schedule says otherwise, application fees are doubled for work performed without the prior authorization or approval this chapter requires. That is a fee multiplier written into the code itself, separate from any enforcement action under Article I.
Commission approval often arrives with conditions attached. Sec. 42-79 provides a route to revisit one without starting the whole plat over — for a subdivision plat. The section is written throughout in those terms: “a previous commission approval of a subdivision plat” in (a), the subdivision plat submittal rules in (a)(2), and “a complete amended application for the subdivision plat” in (c). It does not offer this route for a development plat. Within that scope, the owner may ask the commission in writing to reconsider a requirement or condition of approval, at any time while the approval remains valid and before the plat is filed of record. The request has to identify the specific condition and the reasons, follow the ordinary Sec. 42-53 submittal rules, and carry the applicable fee.
You get one real attempt. Once the commission has decided a reconsideration, Sec. 42-79(b) bars the director from calendaring the same condition again unless the applicant presents new information that was not known to them at the time of the original reconsideration. And if the relief you actually need is a variance or special exception, Sec. 42-79(c) requires a complete amended application and the corresponding findings — reconsideration is not a shortcut around those standards.
This is how the code reads; confirm with the city — or ask a builder who's actually pulled this permit in Houston. The authoritative text is the Houston Code of Ordinances; permitting questions go to Houston Permitting Center.