Earlier this month, the Development Officials’ Forum met over Zoom to discuss local issues, staffing shortages, permit numbers, and efficiencies gained. The jurisdictional updates are below:
Pierce County
- Inspectors are dispatching from home
- 14-day review time
- Revised their documents for Base Plans, limiting restrictions, on options (reach out to Jeff Rowe with questions)
Bonney Lake
- Only 84 SF permits YTD, no MF
- New commercial buildings in East Town
- Same staffing levels all year; people are fully working and working from home
- Universal Base Plans are still being worked out
Tacoma
- All permits were extended to November 1st
- Working from home for staff is efficient; inspectors are also dispatching from home
- Timelines on permits: levels of service are being met; the City is working towards 2-week turnarounds
- Down to 2-3 review
- Understaffed; not hiring for new positions yet
Lakewood
- 6-8 week turnaround
- Staffing: plans examiner retired right before COVID; have been understaffed ever since
- City has relied on outside sources to keep up with flow
- Advocating for MFTE legislation to be expanded
- Considering a department re-organization
- Combining GIS with the County’s
Puyallup
- 2-week turnaround times
- Fully staffed; just hired a new permit tech.
- Implementing CityView
- Looking at all permitting timelines to determine areas of improvements
- Updating inwards and outwards dashboards
University Place
- Jan-Aug: 600 building permits and over 2,000 inspections
- Rolling out a new permit system via InterGov
- Adopting a new form-based code (no density caps in regional base center)
Gig Harbor
- Lost a lot of staff; City has been slow to rehire
- Seeing long turnarounds in SF
- Staff is working from home; considering reorganization for inspections
- Code-enforcement has quadrupled
Edgewood
- Running behind on workflow due to COVID; contracting with a third party
- Currently seeing 6-8 week turnarounds
- Went from 100% paper to 100% paperless during COVID