Excavation Permit Coordination in Columbus, Ohio

Transit & Flow Group’s Excavation Permit Coordination service identifies, prepares, and manages the permits required specifically for excavation and underground utility work: trenching, utility taps, drainage installation, and excavation that crosses into public right-of-way. This is range-priced coordination, scoped to your project once we know its size, utilities involved, and municipality. Describe your project in the Estimate Builder for a preliminary online estimate.

Is this the right service for you?

Excavation Permit Coordination fits a homeowner or project in one of these situations:

• You are planning a utility tap, trench, or drainage installation and are not sure which excavation-specific permits apply, or which municipal department handles them.
• You have a contractor lined up for the digging but need the excavation permit paperwork submitted, tracked, and followed up on separately.
• A previous excavation permit stalled because of a missing utility locate confirmation, an incomplete trench plan, or an unanswered reviewer comment.
• Your excavation crosses a sidewalk, tree lawn, or street, which typically needs an added right-of-way approval on top of the standard excavation permit.
• You want one point of contact for excavation permitting instead of splitting calls between the city, the county, and your utility provider.

Transit & Flow also offers Permit Coordination as part of our Construction and Remodeling division, and it is worth being clear about the difference. That page is the broader service for a full construction or remodeling project’s permits generally, structural, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, and zoning approvals tied to building work. This page, Excavation Permit Coordination, is specifically for permits tied to excavation and underground utility work, trenching, utility taps, drainage installation, and right-of-way excavation. On a larger project, a home addition that also needs a new utility tap and a trenched drain line, for example, both permit types are often needed together. Where the municipality allows it, we coordinate them as one aligned submission rather than running two disconnected applications through the same building department.

How pricing works

Excavation Permit Coordination is scope-based, range pricing. What sets the price:

• Number and type of excavation permits required. A single utility tap permit costs less to coordinate than a project needing a tap permit, a trench permit, and a right-of-way crossing approval together.
• Your municipality’s process. Columbus, Dublin, Westerville, Grove City, and the surrounding townships each run their own excavation permitting office, with different submission formats, utility locate requirements, and review timelines.
• Utility locate and coordination needs. Every excavation permit application depends on confirmed utility locates through the Ohio Utilities Protection Service, and coordinating that step, then documenting it in the application, is part of the scope.
• Right-of-way involvement. If the excavation crosses into public right-of-way, that typically adds our Right-of-Way Coordination service to the submission, priced and scoped alongside the excavation permit itself.
• Revision cycles. If a plan reviewer requests a change to the trench plan or depth documentation, we manage that round trip on your behalf.

Municipal excavation permit fees are set by the jurisdiction and by the utility involved, and they vary widely across Central Ohio. Those fees are paid to the municipality and are separate from what Transit & Flow Group charges to identify, prepare, and manage the application. We confirm the actual fee for your jurisdiction in writing before anything is submitted. Starting at $299. Enter your project details and photos in the Estimate Builder for a preliminary online estimate. Final scope and price subject to verification on site.

What’s included

• Identification of which excavation-specific permits your project requires, by utility type and by jurisdiction
• Coordination of utility locate confirmation through the Ohio Utilities Protection Service ahead of application
• Preparation and submission of excavation permit applications and supporting trench or tap documentation
• Payment coordination for municipal excavation permit fees, which are separate from our coordination cost
• Ongoing status tracking and follow-up with your local building or engineering department
• Coordination with Right-of-Way Coordination when your excavation crosses into public right-of-way
• Where engineered trench drawings are required for depth or utility conflicts, we identify that requirement during review and confirm in writing how it will be arranged and what it will cost before the application moves forward

What’s not included

• The municipal excavation permit fees themselves, paid to the jurisdiction, not to Transit & Flow
• The broader Construction and Remodeling division’s Permit Coordination service, which covers a full project’s structural, electrical, plumbing, and zoning permits generally; that is its own page, and larger projects often need both
• Right-of-way encroachment approval itself, handled by Right-of-Way Coordination when the excavation crosses off your property
• Excavation Inspection Coordination, the scheduling of and attendance at the open-trench and tap inspections that follow once permits are issued; that is a separate service
• The excavation and utility work itself, scoped and priced separately by trade

Transit & Flow coordinates and facilitates these applications on your behalf, but the municipality sets its own review timeline and makes the final approval decision. We do not control that timeline and do not guarantee a particular approval outcome or date.

Excavation permitting in Central Ohio

Central Ohio’s excavation permitting runs through whichever jurisdiction your project sits in, and Columbus, Dublin, Westerville, Grove City, and the surrounding townships do not share one excavation permit form or one review queue. A utility tap in Dublin follows a different submission path than the same trench in Grove City or unincorporated Franklin County, and every excavation permit in the region depends on a completed OUPS utility locate before the application can move forward at all.

Older neighborhoods add complexity here too. Streets in Clintonville, German Village, and Bexley often carry decades of prior utility work, gas, water, sewer, and old telephone lines laid under different standards over the years, which means excavation there sometimes surfaces prior unpermitted taps or conflicting utility records that need resolving before a new permit can be issued. Newer construction in Dublin, New Albany, and Lewis Center tends to have cleaner utility mapping, but larger site excavation projects there can still trigger multiple permit types, a utility tap, a trench permit, and a right-of-way crossing, all at once. Sorting out what your project actually needs, and in what order, before a crew shows up with a machine saves real time later.

Our process

1. Describe your project online. Scope, address, utilities involved, and any contractor details go into the Estimate Builder for a preliminary online estimate.
2. Excavation permit needs review. We identify which excavation-specific permits your project requires and confirm the utility locate status.
3. Application and submission. We prepare and submit the paperwork to your municipality, with fees coordinated on your behalf.
4. Tracking and follow-up. We monitor review status and respond to reviewer comments without you having to make the calls.
5. Handoff to inspections. Once permits are issued, we can coordinate Excavation Inspection Coordination to schedule the open-trench and tap inspections through completion.

Services completed by appropriately qualified professionals where required.