PERMITTING BEST PRACTICES AND TECHNOLOGY Capitol Region Council of Governments ViewPoint Working Group November 6, 2015 Jocelyn Mathiasen

© 2014, Jocelyn Mathiasen Principles Predictable Consistent “One city/town” Proportional Avoid surprises 2

© 2014, Jocelyn Mathiasen Best Practices in Permitting At intake, only accept an application if it is complete and ready to be reviewed Decide what “complete” means Use clear forms where critical fields are designated and prominent Train staff to review applications completeness If possible, have a reviewer scan of each application before acceptance, or at least within a day. “Guard” but don’t “Bar” the door. 3

© 2014, Jocelyn Mathiasen Best Practices in Permitting Review simpler projects first - Average plan review time drops when small projects jump the queue. First In First OutSmall Projects First Hours of Review Required Day Issued Hours of Review Required Day Issued New commercial building 183Minor renovation New commercial building 184 AVERAGE4 2 4

© 2014, Jocelyn Mathiasen Best Practices in Permitting Assign a lead department and a case manager Lead department: identifies which agencies should be involved in review Oversees the process to ensure that the permit is moving forward and is not “stuck” Consolidates comments from reviewers, including addressing conflicts Communicates with the applicant regarding review status 5

© 2014, Jocelyn Mathiasen Best Practices in Permitting Use a Development Review Committee approach Development Review Committee should include all agencies involved in review of planning projects – police, fire, engineering, transportation, tree commission, wetlands, etc. Agenda produced ahead of time Reviewers come to the meeting prepared Calendar should be predictable, with a guarantee that applications will be looked at if submitted by a set date Consolidated comments should be provided to applicant within a few days of DRC meeting 6

© 2014, Jocelyn Mathiasen Best Practices in Permitting Set deadlines for review by agencies Every review agency should have a set time-frame for plan turnaround Time-frame is typically 2-3 weeks for input on major projects Lead agency has an additional week to consolidate Mandate may need to come from Chief Executive 7

© 2014, Jocelyn Mathiasen Best Practices in Permitting Offer (or require) a pre-development conference for both planning and complex building applications Use DRC committee membership Agenda produced ahead of time Submittal should include complete site plan but omit expensive engineering analysis Comments provided in writing but with a caveat that they are preliminary Consider requiring and/or charging for some projects 8

© 2014, Jocelyn Mathiasen Best Practices in Permitting For resubmittals, review should focus only on whether comments have been addressed. New issues should not be identified unless they are critical to life-safety or arise due to plan changes that were made between the initial and second submission. 9

© 2014, Jocelyn Mathiasen Best Practices Project Flow 10

© 2014, Jocelyn Mathiasen Technology’s role Electronic and paper form design – make sure important items come first and are mandatory. Omit superfluous fields. Predictability – print out a list of required reviewers. Priorities –review and assign projects as they come in based on complexity Public access –all reviewers must post comments on-line. Encourage the public to check for comments Centralized plans – post the “official” plans (in PDF format) for all reviewers to see. Can use intranet, internet, or Dropbox. Explore options for electronic mark-up. 11

© 2014, Jocelyn Mathiasen Technology … Use GoToMeeting or other means for DRC meeting. Consolidated comments – post consolidated comments on-line and provide a Word document for the applicant. Print out all “conditions of approval” with the permit or land use approval, if possible as a 2 nd page go the permit form. Allow for easy scheduling of inspections, via IVR or internet. Best practice = next day inspections. Use photographs in lieu of re-inspections. Post inspection every day, and have people go on-line to see where they are in the lineup. 12