So.....my house was built in 1942....with a side porch off the kitchen that had a "patio cover" over it.  The previous owners pulled a permit to expand the kitchen over the area previously occupied by the porch.....and demo'd the patio cover and the stucco right before they lost the house to the bank.  So then I come in, restucco the wall and put the porch cover back up....it's 12x4'.   No problem.  Fast forward 3 years....asshat from "code enforcement" cruises by, sees the porch occupying the shaded in area on the new proposed plot plan, comes to the conclusion that work was carried out without an inspection, and leaves me a love note that I'll be fined $1000 a day unless I nsee him.  Ok, half day off work and down to city hall.  I told him it was existing from 1942, as shown on a plot plan from 1955 that i found from when the owner pulled a permit to build a shed, but the guy would listen to it.  "if there's no permit, its not existing.  He hands me a set of "patio cover general details", fills in a few dimensions, charges me $100,  and sends me over to engineering who charged me $100 and sends me to plan approval.....yup...another $100.  So I go home and make few changes....you can't pull the damn porch roof down with a truck now.  Inspector comes out and says it doesn't match the plans, so he fails me.   No shit....I guess the code enforcement asshole who would't listen handed me plans that didn't apply and and made me a list of shit to fix that didn't apply.  Now what?  I have calls into the head of building and safety to request an appointment as I've calves the live and dead loads, and I've got in excess of twice the structure I need to deal with the loads....and I'm compliant with the plans.   The inspector told me I had to do a bunch of stuff that WAS NOT on the plans to legalize it. 

Any tips for dealing with these assholes?  It's like talking to my ******* dogs

You don't even want to get me started.........If I was to tell you what they were really up to you would be shopping for an AR15 and 1000 rounds

I dealt with these morons long enough that I don't even call anymore.

GT

WTF!! Calc live and dead loads?  You're not building a casino.  But you are dealing with the supreme city of Long Beach.  I have been on that 4th floor a thousand times.  It is a shark pool for the inexperienced.  All I can tell you is do your homework, learn the process, drop any attitude and swallow.  As you are sitting there waiting for your number to be called, watch and listen to the plan checkers.  Some of them are decent.  Take a red sharpie and a ruler with you and ask to make corrections in red pen.  I have found that most small corrections can be made on all sets of your plans right at the counter.
Now that you are on their radar, build EXACTLY what is on the permit and get ALL required inspections.  Don't give them any reasons to pull your permit.  If you run into a problem, call the inspector out to figure it out.

Not that you don't know what you are doing, but they have a DIY builders guide here with good construction details, plan requirements and basic stuff that might help.

http://www.lbds.info/building/engineering_n_development_services/help_for_the_home_builder.asp