Start with the E-Permit number or nearest job address, then name the document you need. Los Angeles BOE’s soil-boring procedure covers proposed boring or potholing in the City’s public right-of-way. The permit is not a technical log of what a boring encountered underground.
Read the permit file without losing the separate log question
Use this checklist to keep authorization, work evidence and technical observations separate:
- Authorization: Enter the E-Permit number and location.
- Work evidence: List any dated inspection reference or attachment title present.
- Technical observations: Name a boring log or geotechnical report only if the file identifies it.
Leave a blank when it does not; proposed diameter and depth are plan details, not subsurface observations.
This distinction also helps with dates. A file can describe planning, authorization, activity and inspection at different times. Put each date beside the document that supports it; do not collapse them into one completion date. A geological interpretation needs its own source document and author.
For a fictional example, imagine an E-Permit plan with proposed locations B-1 and B-2 and a later file list that says “attachment: field log B-1.” The plan does not establish what B-1 encountered, and the B-1 title does not establish that a B-2 log exists. Ask for the named B-1 attachment and its date or version. Keep B-2 marked “not identified in the file checked.”
What the soil-boring E-Permit requires
BOE's procedure lists the conditions the permit carries. They explain what the file should contain, and none of them is a subsurface result:
- A soil-boring or potholing permit is an excavation E-Permit and expires six months after issuance.
- The plan or sketch must be stamped by a licensed civil engineer and label each boring's diameter and depth.
- Borings need 5 feet of clearance from City sewer and storm drain lines and 2 feet from private utilities and the gutter. No drilling is allowed on sidewalks, gutters or bus pads.
- The applicant posts deposits (inspection deposits start at $2,000) and keeps $1,000,000 in general liability insurance on file with the City Administrative Officer.
- A traffic control approval may be needed where NavigateLA flags the location, and streets resurfaced within the past year carry a one-year moratorium.
Inspection entries show that work happened under those conditions. The log of what each boring found is a separate technical document.
Where a private project's soils report goes
For a private building site, geotechnical work is reviewed by LADBS, not BOE. Reports go to the LADBS Grading Division on its Application for Review of Technical Reports (Grading Division, 221 N. Figueroa St., 12th floor, (213) 482-0480). Geology and engineering staff at the Downtown Metro Office review them and issue an approval or review letter. LADBS's online building records list geology and soils reports among the searchable document types, alongside building permits from 1905.
So if the boring served a private building, look for the soils report and the LADBS review letter in the building record. If it served a street or utility project, the E-Permit file and the engineer who commissioned the work are the likelier sources. For LADBS copies, the department takes requests at Records.LADBS@lacity.org and in person by appointment at 201 N. Figueroa St., Room 110.
Choose the access route by record era and document title
The E-Permit portal landing describes applicant status access with an application password and online printing after processing. The landing page does not offer a public address, APN or boring-log search. Applicant access should not be mistaken for public access to every attachment.
For an E-Permit issued before April 27, 2021, BOE’s archived-access instructions route readers through NavigateLA: use the address, find archived BOE Permits, and follow an issued-record symbol when available. The date is an access-system cutover, not the first year a record exists.An issued copy reached through that route still does not identify a resulting boring log unless the copy or its attachments say so.
For an identified BOE-held permit, plan or missing attachment, the current indexed BOE records-request guidance describes Engineering Risk Management’s public-records route, including its online request option and an email alternative at eng.riskmgr@lacity.org.A focused existing-record inquiry can name the E-Permit or log number, job location, period, and the exact attachment title or inspection reference found in your own papers. Ask whether BOE holds that item and which copy route applies. This is not a request for BOE to produce a new geotechnical conclusion.
If the technical log is not named in the BOE file, the next question is who commissioned or received it, not whether the E-Permit should have contained it. The reviewed BOE pages do not promise that every resulting lithology log, laboratory result or private-site geotechnical report is retained with a public-right-of-way permit. A missing online attachment, password barrier or failed page load leaves the file’s contents unresolved; it does not prove that no boring, permit or report ever existed.
The Los Angeles building-permit search guide covers LADBS building records, a different permit family. The Los Angeles street-vacation guide addresses another BOE record chain and its separate custody steps. Use those guides only when the paper you hold points to those records. An E-Permit, plan label or inspection entry does not prove a technical boring result, final construction acceptance, building-permit closure or present subsurface condition.
Official BOE and LADBS pages checked October 8 and October 20, 2026.