Cutting Through Red Tape Groups Work To Eliminate Problems In Construction Permitting Process

Business leaders who complained last year about local permitting processes now say they are hopeful developers may soon see positive changes at Spokane City Hall and Spokane County.

Significant progress has already been made on the issue, said Dick Heckroth, business retention and expansion director at the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce. He helped write the Chamber’s report analyzing local permitting processes and is part of the business assistance team working on solutions with county and city staff.

So far, said Heckroth, developers and county building officials have reached agreement on several key issues, including promoting a customer service philosophy, handling disagreements and plan-review procedures. Pre-application technical review meetings, which are voluntary, are now encouraged for all projects.

Meetings with city staff have also been fruitful.

“One of the key recommendations made by the business assistance team was to analyze the process and provide some checklists to help builders navigate that process,” said Spokane Building Official Dave Nakagawara, who added that preliminary checklists and flow charts have already been drawn up.

Those checklists are a good start, said Mike Taylor, owner of Taylor Engineering, who helped write the Chamber report. But he said more needs to be done, including making information more accessible.

Taylor, immediate past chairman of Spokane’s Economic Development Council, said he also would like to see permit applications and status reports made available on the Internet.

“Bellevue has a matrix that you can call onto over the Internet to see where (a permit application) is and who has looked at it,” he said. “It’s a great way to check on the status. If (the application) is moving through the system properly then you don’t bother anybody, and if it’s not then you know where it is hung up and who to call.”

Municipalities across the country are embracing Internet permitting of applications, said Jon Fisher, president of NetClerk, a San Francisco-based Internet company that facilitates contractors’ permit applications in municipalities in the Bay Area and Phoenix. Within a year, said Fisher, NetClerk will expand its services to 30 metropolitan areas, including Seattle.

“Basically it comes down to a fact that as a country we are in a construction boom and developers are going to be interested in working in communities that make it easy for them to make their way through the permitting process,” he said.

Nakagawara said that city staff is shopping for a system that will provide Internet application and information services, but implementation will depend on available funding.

Funding, he added, is also a sticking point on the suggestion that permit applications be shepherded through the process by one city employee, a practice already in place at the county. Staffing constraints, said Nakagawara, prohibit such a change at this time.

But procedural changes aside, the more important issue and the more important change, said Taylor, may be in how city staff views developers.

“Like any service industry, whether you are a hotel or a restaurant, people skills are important,” said Taylor. “And we wanted staff to be evaluated on that as well as technical skill.”

That criticism is prompting some staff soul-searching, said Nakawara, who is coordinating the city engineering, building and planning departments’ efforts to improve customer service.

A change of philosophy is necessary for staff members who are used to accepting applications then telling builders where there are problems. Now, said Nakawara, staff will be directed to work as developers’ and applicants’ partners in the permitting process.

“It’s not a matter of the customer always being right - we have laws to uphold,” said Nakagawara, “but we need to at least clearly dictate how a customer should be treated.”