On February 28. 2006, Attorney General Bill Lockyer issued an opinion addressing whether interim documents submitted to a city in support of a building permit application are subject to public inspection under the California Public Records Act.
The opinion concluded that:
Interim grading documents, including geology reports, compaction reports, and soils reports, submitted by a property owner to a city’s building department in conjunction with an application for a building permit are subject to public inspection and copying under the California Public Records Act at the time the documents are first received by the building department. (Attorney General Opinion 05-1004.)
The opinion rejected three potential exemptions to disclosure: 1) preliminary drafts pursuant to Government Code section 6254(a), because the records are kept in the ordinary course of business and because the exemption is limited to deliberative writings of the public agency; 2) records prohibited from disclosure under other state or federal laws pursuant to Government Code section 6254, because no other laws prohibited the disclosure; and 3) geologic and geophysical data relating to utility systems development pursuant to Government Code section 6254(e), because the documents were not obtained in confidence.