Land development & construction consulting — Washington
Most projects don't stall in construction. They stall long before it.
Permits that keep coming back with corrections. A site with wetlands, slopes, or stormwater nobody priced. Engineering that doesn't reconcile with what the county will actually approve. Carol Crane has spent 25+ years moving Washington projects through those stages — and now takes that on as a consultant, so owners can hire the judgment without hiring a full-time team.
When to bring CLD in
Three situations where a call pays for itself
The permit keeps bouncing back
Corrections cycle, review timelines slip, and no one on the team owns the response. Someone has to read what the reviewer is actually asking for and drive it to approval.
The site is more complicated than it looked
Wetlands, steep slopes, stormwater, easements, utility runs. Constraints like these change what's buildable — and the earlier you know, the cheaper the answer.
You haven't done this before
First ADU, first short plat, first ground-up build. The tuition for learning it live gets paid in months of schedule and change orders you didn't budget.
Services
What CLD is hired to do
Engaged by the scope, by the phase, or across the whole project. Most clients start with feasibility or a permit that needs unsticking.
Feasibility & Due Diligence
The cheapest problem is the one you find before closing. A feasibility review tells you what the parcel supports, what it will cost to get there, and whether to walk away.
Read more →Permitting & Entitlements
Plan review is a conversation with a reviewer who has a checklist and a queue. Projects move when someone reads what's actually being asked and answers it completely.
Read more →Short Plats & Subdivisions
A land division is an infrastructure project with lot lines drawn on it. The layout that maximizes lots on paper is often not the layout that survives review.
Read more →Critical Areas & Environmental
Critical areas don't make a site unbuildable. They make it a different site than the one you thought you were buying, and the difference is worth knowing early.
Read more →Stormwater & Site Development
Stormwater is where small residential projects discover they're infrastructure projects. Getting the requirements right early changes what the site plan can be.
Read more →ADU Planning & Permitting
Washington has spent several years loosening ADU rules, and jurisdictions have implemented that unevenly. What your lot allows depends heavily on who permits it.
Read more →Process
Sequenced like a drawing set, because the order matters
Skipping ahead is what makes projects expensive. Each stage answers a question the next one depends on.
Find out what the land will allow
Zoning and code review, critical-area screening, utility and access confirmation, order-of-magnitude budget. The deliverable is a clear go, no-go, or go-with-conditions — before serious money is spent.
Get the project approved in concept
Jurisdiction strategy, pre-application meetings, land-use applications, hearings and conditions. Assembling the consultant team and keeping their work reconciled.
Move plan review to issued permits
Submittal packages, tracking review cycles, writing correction responses that resolve comments the first time, and holding agencies to their own timelines.
Build it to the plan and the budget
Subcontractor coordination, schedule and cost tracking, daily progress monitoring, inspection readiness, and quality control against the approved drawings.
Finish clean
Final inspections, punch list, occupancy, warranty and record documents handed over organized enough to use years from now.
Selected work
Project types CLD has carried through
Service areas
In person across four counties, remote across the country
Snohomish County
CLD's home county, and the jurisdiction Carol has worked in longest. Snohomish County covers rural acreage, incorporated cities with their own permit counters, and a lot of parcels where the wetland map and the wetland disagree.
Local detail →King County
King County is really dozens of permitting jurisdictions in a trench coat. Knowing which one you're in — and how that office works — is most of the battle.
Local detail →Skagit County
Skagit brings a constraint set most of Puget Sound doesn't: working agricultural land, a large river delta, and floodplain regulation that shapes what gets built where.
Local detail →Island County
Island County is Whidbey and Camano, and almost every parcel is close enough to saltwater that shoreline regulation, bluff stability, or both are part of the conversation.
Local detail →Common questions
Before you call
What does a construction consultant actually do?
Reads a site and a code early, coordinates the design and engineering team, drives permits to issuance, and oversees construction on the owner's behalf. The distinction from a general contractor is that a consultant advises you and has no financial stake in the construction contract.
Where does CLD Consulting work?
In person across Snohomish, King, Skagit and Island counties in Washington. Remote code research and permit preparation is available nationwide.
Is CLD Consulting the same as CLD Construction?
Yes — CLD Consulting is a DBA of CLD Construction LLC, the firm Carol Crane founded in 2008. The consulting name reflects the shift from performing construction to advising owners on it.
How do engagements start?
With a call. Carol reads the project, tells you what stage it's really in, and proposes a scope only if there's work worth doing.
Tell Carol about the project
The first conversation is a straight read on whether the project is workable and what it would take to move it. No charge for that call.