Editorial Note: Updated April 19, 2018
What Happened?
East Providence, Rhode Island, is redeveloping its industrial waterfront properties, and streamlining the permitting process to make regulatory and structural changes faster and more efficient. The city’s unique permitting process model includes a strategy to govern the land that is transitioning from highway property to more developed land.
The Goal
One component of East Providence’s permitting process is an expedited review phase to make it easier for the regulatory framework to be changed implemented. East Providence has also employed a tax-increment financing strategy to make funding of waterfront projects more readily available. Smaller communities are able to take on ambitious projects that typically require long-term, complicated funding processes to stay afloat through a more feasible pathway.
East Providence is using the tax-incremental financing to pay for transit improvements. This and many other redevelopment projects are part of an overarching goal to market properties along the waterfront to new business and residential developments with cleanup efforts.
Permitting Revenues
In Crestview, Florida, the city council is also making changes to its permitting process to aid in accelerating launch and completion of future projects. The council recently passed an ordinance to update the permitting fee structure for the city, which is expected to make the city’s permitting division self-sufficient by generating $40,000 that can be taken out of the budget, the Crestview Bulletin reported.
The ordinance could not be adopted, however, until Chapter 14 of the city code was repealed and a new schedule implemented. The language of the new ordinance included assurances for taxpayers that their money will not be used to inspect projects proposed by other residents. Rather than the division paying for required inspections, residents pay a permit fee as well as a trip charge to keep the costs down for the local government.
Get It Done Faster
Officials from Fort Wayne and Allen County, Indiana, collaborated and aligned their laws to speed up the land-use permit process in both regions. Working together at the city and county levels, officials created a Joint Permit Oversight Committee in 2012 to improve online permitting capabilities and eliminate any redundancies in city and county laws.
Residents can access services from the department, apply for permits and pay fees all through an efficient, paperless online portal. The online channel makes it easy for contractors or residents to get projects going without having to apply or pay for permits in person, downtown. This will save time and money for residents, contractors and the permit department.
Furthermore, developers working on projects have the ability to track projects online, gauge performance throughout a project and identify where in the process applications may get stalled so the problem can be fixed quickly. The online portal can be used to access permitting resources for numerous project types including:
- Electric
- Building
- Plumbing
- New construction
- Remodeling
- Planning services
- Health
- Drainage issues
- Highway and roads
Permissible Changes
Gov1 has tracked a variety of changes to permitting process to make ambitious projects a reality such as urban farming efforts and business development.