February 6, 1998

DCLU working to unclog Seattle's permit process

By CLAIR ENLOW
Journal A/E editor

The Seattle Department of Construction and Land Use has listened its customers. Permit applicants say they are waiting too long for permits, it's hard to get questions answered and it's too complicated just to apply.

DCLU has been working to improve customer service even as the number of customers grew to 6,000 last year, with a record $1 billion in construction volume. That volume includes two major sports facilities, a multi-modal terminal, a concert hall, the convention center expansion and continuing downtown development. New commercial projects led the increase at 210 percent over 1996. Single family construction and remodeling also jumped in volume.

The year also saw large projects for major institutions such as the Port of Seattle, the University of Washington and Swedish and Harborview hospitals. At DCLU, work on these projects begins long before the permit application is made -- with pre-application meetings -- and continues through review and construction, with both reviewers and inspectors busy during the construction phase.

Keeping large, phased projects going while letting smaller projects through the pipeline is one of the many challenges that DCLU is facing, according to its director Rick Krochalis.

Hug your regulator?

The current improvement process began in 1996 with a program and funding study and a five-year plan. But 1997 started with a roar of mud, followed by the rush of applications for repair of buildings damaged in the massive slides of December and January.

After nearly 400 site inspections, DCLU staff began working with owners facing complex repair projects. They held meetings in affected neighborhoods, revised development standards for landslide prone areas, and participated in response teams working on a range of items from outreach to policy revision. Dealing with slides grew to half of the work load at DCLU.

"And then the big projects started coming in," said Krochalis. All in all, in 1997, "We did bigger (and) faster, more than any time in the history of the department."

While permit applications began pouring in early last year, focus groups representing "stakeholders" in the permit process -- builders, architects, engineers and major institutions -- began to meet at DCLU to talk about improving service.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of the process has been allowing regulators and customers to meet face-to-face without a project between them.

Krochalis, along with plan review director Craig Ladiser and a delegation consisting of plan reviewers and inspectors, met with a group of 75 citizens at a gathering sponsored by Historic Seattle. One by one, attendees revealed their fears about inspectors and plan reviewers. One attendee wanted to know if he would be penalized for past code infractions when an inspector comes in on a renovation project.

To Ladiser, this fear was a revelation. "Fine, we have the authority," he answered. "But we don't administer that way."

"It was marvelous," said Ladiser of the whole experience.

A few of the things customers wanted were not hard to deliver, but some were. "We don't do a good job at explaining the reasons for that," said Krochalis. "We tend to have an image problem. When was the last time you hugged your regulator?"

Some improvements

"The value of having line staff develop improvements was clear," said Ladiser. "They have heard these things directly."

It is a daunting task to develop and refine a permit process that is predictable yet flexible, comprehensive yet simple, efficient yet personal. For the smaller project or one-time applicant, "There's a lot of this that could get better -- and it's not rocket science," said Ladiser.

In the small project category, there is good news already. Applicants can pick up information packets describing the permit review and approval process. Small businesses and home owners can attend neighborhood workshops about simple home repairs and typical tenant improvements.

They can also call in inspection requests on a 24-hour line, and receive confirmation of inspection date and time. Some permits may be applied for via the Internet, such as electrical, boiler, furnace, refrigeration, wood stove and sign permits.

Educating applicants is half the battle. "If we can enhance the quality of the application, we can cut turnaround time in half," said Ladiser.

As of now, 34 percent of permits get issued within 24 hours, Krochalis said. He hopes to hit 65 percent by the end of the year but said there are "infrastructure needs in order to get there." The DCLU staff has held several "production pushes" during the year, restricting staff to work on permit applications already in the pipeline.

DCLU is also working on how to unclog the system for larger projects. Recommendations are due in March, according to DCLU's public information officer Allan Justad. Like the improvements already in place, these points will come out of meetings with stakeholders.

When implemented, the recommendations are expected to shorten the number of steps in the permit process. Changes will be phased in, said Justad.

Through the city's geographic information systems and links with the engineering and fire departments, DCLU intends to become a one-stop shop for permit review and offer more information to permit applicants online. Krochalis forsees the day when larger applications can be sent electronically and be tracked at each step via the Internet.

Outside consultants

In the meantime, DCLU must deal with the peaks and valleys of construction activity in Seattle.

The valleys, like the one in 1995, mean staff layoffs. The hills mean staff increases and work speeds up. Then there is 1997, an explosive year for permits. "We cannot respond quickly enough to the economy," said Krochalis.

Increasingly, the preferred alternative to large-scale hiring is bringing outside consultants. "It's a pressure-relief valve," he said.

Some of the consultants currently providing plan check services to DCLU include Whitely Jacobsen & Associates, a Seattle architecture and engineering firm, and Reid Middleton an engineering and planning firm in Lynnwood. Two Eastside plan check consultants, O'Connor and Associates and Form Engineers, are also providing services.

But in today's hot market, finding qualified design professionals to take on plan review is difficult. They are busy and there is a learning curve involved.

Ladiser hopes the use of outside consultants for permit processing will provide sufficient profit for consultants and adequate volume and quality control for DCLU. In the meantime, "I can send them more than any of them can do."

Design review

Krochalis is proud of recent efforts to link the word "design" to "review" in the permit application process.

Design review takes place through the Seattle Design Commission, which makes recommendations on large city projects and through design review panels in Seattle neighborhoods, including downtown.

The design review process is intended to give neighborhoods buildings that are compatible while offering code flexibility to designers and their clients.

Mayor Paul Schell, as a developer and recent dean of the UW College of Architecture and Urban Planning, has indicated that permit processing, code flexibility and design review are very important in forging a new policy for affordable housing in Seattle.

Getting the developer, the neighborhood and DCLU together on projects is important to housing developer John Kucher, who has been participating in stakeholder meetings with DCLU. "It's flexibilty -- getting away from a rigid, law-based land use code," said Kucher.

As it is currently written, Kucher said, the code is "a bunch of overlays that are there because bad projects have gone up and the neighborhood didn't want them."

Kucher, whose recent projects include Malden Court on Capitol Hill, has found that design review turns neighborhoods from obstacles into resources. "It's almost like they're helping you with your market research," he said.

DCLU is showcasing some of the multi-family housing projects that have undergone design review in the Land Use Lobby of the Dexter Horton Building, 710 Second Ave., Suite 200.

While it changes some of the most basic rules of the game in permit review, design review is also another way to "integrate staff professionals and citizen volunteers," according to Krochalis.

He is proud of the result.

"Design is important to Seattle," said Krochalis.