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

PERMITTING BEST PRACTICES AND TECHNOLOGYCapitol Region Council of Governments ViewPoint Working Group

November 6, 2015

Jocelyn [email protected]

203-733-2604

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© 2014, Jocelyn Mathiasen

Principles

• Predictable• Consistent• “One city/town” • Proportional• Avoid surprises

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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.

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Review simpler projects first - Average plan review time drops when small projects jump the queue.

First In First Out Small Projects First

Hours of Review Required

Day Issued

Hours of Review Required

Day Issued

New commercial building

18 3 Minor renovation 2 1

Minor renovation 2 4 Minor renovation 2 1



Minor renovation 2 5 New commercial building

18 4

AVERAGE 4 AVERAGE 2

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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

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Best Practices in PermittingUse 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

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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

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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

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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.

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Best Practices Project Flow

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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.

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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 2nd 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.

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Documents

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