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The First Step to Housing Affordability:
Streamlining the Permit Process
by Tom Larson
This is the first of a series of articles on improving housing affordability. As communities throughout Wisconsin begin the comprehensive planning process, one of the biggest challenges they face is completing the housing element. The housing element is one of the required nine elements of the comprehensive plan which requires communities to provide both affordable housing and a sufficient supply of housing to meet market demand.
Completing the housing element is problematic for many communities because they have never actively planned for affordable housing and are unfamiliar with incorporating market-based principles into their plans. Accordingly, these communities often contact the WRA and many local boards for assistance in meeting these requirements.
The direct and indirect costs that result from lengthy and complex approval procedures, numerous and often conflicting resource protection standards, and fees assessed on development are true costs that add to the consumer's price of a home. These additional costs have the potential to affect not just the final product cost, but even project feasibility. Because the proportion of total costs that processing delays and uncertainty add is even greater for more affordably priced housing, they have a direct impact on who can afford to purchase a home.
The following is a list of possible measures that can be used at the local level to make the development process more effective, efficient, and less costly:
Initial Assessment: The first step in any streamlining reform effort should be to take stock of how long various approvals actually take in a community. This should be a "look in the mirror" exercise to help identify where the approval process usually bogs down.
Presumption of Approval: This is perhaps the single most important concept that has been raised about the way in which the development approval process performs. Overall, there should be a presumption that approval will be granted if development standards are met. Applicants should not be forced routinely into case-by-case reviews such as the special exception, conditional use or planned unit development process. Case-by-case reviews should be an option, but not the norm, and should be aimed at enhancing flexibility and quality, not stymieing it.
Central Permit Information Desk and One-Stop Permitting: All requirements and permits for land development should be initiated from a single central location. This eliminates needless backtracking to various municipal or county offices. Staff must be familiar with all requirements and be able to adequately answer questions. They should be trained to see their role as facilitators in the approval process, not adversaries.
Cross-train of Staff: Reduce specialization and thus enhance staff understanding of how various development standards and issues relate to each other. This improves coordination and helps expedite the approval process. It also increases the number of employees who are able to staff the central permit information desk.
Define Key Terms and Use Simple, Direct Language: Vague or legalistic language is often difficult to interpret, particularly by lay planning commissioners with little experience or familiarity with land-use issues. Terms and requirements should be as clear and specific as possible, with criteria provided as a guide to implementing more flexible standards. Clear cross-references should be made to sections and standards that relate to each other. Quick-reference tables should be used wherever possible. These steps will benefit both the applicant and those who must administer and enforce the ordinance.
Ordinance Approval Process Checklists and Flow Charts: Ordinances should spell out where to submit applications, which agency has the final approval authority, and the approval sequence for various types of applications. The authority and responsibilities of each agency and governmental body involved in the process should also be clearly explained. Too often, individual stages of the process are described, but not the process start to finish and how long it will typically take. Some communities have published process and permit flow charts as separate brochures or guidebooks to the ordinance that can be distributed at a central permit information desk.
Clearly State Submittal Requirements and Require Appropriate Level of Detail in
Applications: As HUD suggests in its 1982 publication, How Local Regulatory Improvement Can Help, "Do not require detailed design until the basic concept is agreed upon." Distinguish between preliminary and final plan submissions. Clearly set out when construction can begin. Practice varies across the country as to whether construction of improvements may begin after preliminary plan approval or final plan approval, and many ordinances do not make this key action point clear.
Specify the Time Frame or Limits for Review and Approvals to Ensure Timely Decisions are Made: Vague and lengthy review processes and a lack of response from municipal staff add delays that contribute unnecessarily to the cost of housing. Ordinances should specify when decisions will be made, such as 30 or 45 days after a public hearing on the project. Decisions should not be indefinitely postponed, or tabled from hearing to hearing. Ideally the ordinance should also state that if decisions by the relevant agency are not made within the specified time limit, the application is presumed approved.
Pre-application Conferences: Pre-application conferences are one of the most effective tools in expediting the development approval process. Encouraging developers to meet informally with planning staff to present concept or sketch plans for a project can help address issues and requirements before expensive technical and engineering work has been conducted. Some communities require this conference, while others make it voluntary; but no case should be formal approval of such sketch plans-even by staff-be required.
Interdepartmental Review Committees with a Designated Coordinator or Ombudsman: Establishing a single point of contact and appointed review coordinator, such as the planning director, helps coordinate reviews by multiple agencies and work out discrepancies in the comments received from those agencies. To be successful, the coordinator must have the authority to make final decisions when discrepancies occur.
Permit Expediting and Tracking: Computerized tracking systems provide the ability to tell an applicant the status of his or her application and to more readily identify coordination problems between agencies.
Concurrent, not Additive or Sequential, Reviews Whenever Possible: Simultaneous reviews allow different steps in an application to be reviewed together as a package, or at least during the same time frame, reducing the time involved in sequential reviews. A typical example would be to allow the preliminary plan and rezoning applications for a planned unit development to be handled together.
Create a Hierarchy or Rank Projects: Small and non-controversial projects or particularly desirable projects (such as affordable housing) can be "fast-tracked" as administrative rather than as legislative approvals by allowing the planning director to review and approve them. In this way, the level of attention is commensurate with the level of impacts of the project, with valuable public and private resources devoted only to the review of projects that have a greater impact on the community. Alternatively, or in addition, the number of requirements that apply to those projects can be reduced.
Allow More Decisions to be Handled Administratively: Planning staff should handle issues such as those that are mostly technical, minor changes to submittals, and minor subdivision approvals.
Eliminate Multiple Public Hearings: Often, a developer must present the same information at public hearings before several different commissions or boards. This is not only duplicative, but time-consuming and inefficient. In addition, the public does not need multiple opportunities to comment on a proposed project. A single hearing held by the planning commission or equivalent body can provide public perspective that can be evaluated along with other relevant criteria in deciding whether to approve or deny an application. Most developers now hold meetings with neighborhood residents as a matter of routine to solicit public input on a project proposal early on, to minimize the costs associated with redesign plans and specifications.
Self-Certification of Plans and/or Inspections by Engineers: Some communities have had success with setting up programs to train and certify registered consulting engineers, who then sign off on development plans and/or constructed improvements as being in compliance with local ordinance requirements. This reduces the burden on municipal staff and enhances the efficiency of the inspection and approval process.
Specify the Time Frame for Inspection of Constructed Improvements and Release of Performance Bonds or Guarantees: The terms and conditions for accepting improvements constructed and financed by the developer, who must often post financial guarantees that ensure their construction, should be clearly described. The ordinance should state who conducts such inspections and the time frame for inspections and subsequent full or partial release of performance guarantees.
Combine Inspections: Although this suggestion appears in reports more often in the context of building inspections, it is also relevant to inspection of required site improvements.
Update and Reevaluate Ordinances on a Regular Basis: Many communities add new requirements to ordinances over the years without ever going back to reevaluate whether these are consistent with existing requirements. Requirements should also be evaluated periodically to ensure they reflect current demographic needs as well as current development concerns and practices. Enabling legislation should include "sunset" provisions that require communities to conduct such reevaluations or face having their ordinances expire.
Simplify and Reduce the Number of Zoning Districts: Consolidation of zoning districts allows a greater range of uses and densities in each zone and reduces the need for and number of rezonings. It also builds more flexibility into the development process to accommodate new uses that were not envisioned at the time the districts were created.
Allow and Encourage Innovative Techniques: Techniques that encourage more efficient and desirable land development should be encouraged (not mandated) through efficient approval procedures. Many communities claim to encourage these options but then subject developers to lengthier review and uncertain standards. Traditional neighborhood development and cluster subdivisions should be allowed as conditional uses or as overlays to existing zoning districts rather than handles as rezonings. Alternative lot arrangements, particularly for small lots, should be allowed. Density bonuses, and expedited permit approvals can be used as incentives to help encourage the use of these techniques.
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