Getting a building permit

[CO2]

I am building in Orchid Land and have been working on my own plans. It has been a bit frustrating determining the actual requirements for submitting your own plans. (We used to be contractors in Virginia and built only houses we designed ourselves so we aren't exactly newbies in this respect. We worked in the engineeting field before we were contractors so we aren't unfamiliar with computing loads and other engineering design calculations.)

I still have a few questions - apparently there are ways to get your plans approved without an engineer/architect stamp based on size, usage, etc. Has anyone got plans permitted without an engineer's stamp?

As for getting the plans through the permitting process...I was told by the building department that it was taking about 3 months right now to get plans approved. That is unacceptable as I am ready to build now. I looked at 'expeditors' which cost between $600 and $5000 depending on how much they have to do and they trim it down to 1 to 1-1/2 months (still too long but I think that is the fastest it can happen from what I've have discovered so far). My question is: Has anyone walked plans through the system themselves? It doesn't seem that hard - taking them to the different agencies for approval before giving it to the building dept.

Any experiences would be appreciated.

Thanks