Streamlining Development and Building Permitting

In the 1990s, developers, eager to move ahead with construction projects as rapidly as possible, chafed at the slowness and bureaucratic complexity of the permit application process. Consequently, many jurisdictions reformed and streamlined permitting and used a variety of practical techniques to cut the time and hassle involved in applying for and getting a permit. Since then, jurisdictions have refined their systems and arrived at mature solutions to the permitting issue. The four case studies in this report describe these developments.