Making Housing More Affordable — Is that Permitted?

Roadblocks from the EPA

One of the most frustrating barriers to new development is the time frame that it takes to get certain permits, specifically permits required by the federal government to develop properties.  Both the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act through the Environmental Protection Agency can result in extensive delays.  To obtain a Clean Water Act section 404 permit which allows for the development can take up to 12 months. And the required consultation needed to obtain approval through the Endangered Species Act can take many years.

Clean Water

Plaque sign on the outside of the United State Department of Education in Washington D.C.

No sensible person wants to abandon the concept of protection of our natural resources including water but the process of researching submitting and reviewing permits for work have become so difficult, time consuming, and expensive the projects are often delayed or even abandon.  With the wealth of information and knowledge we have over many years of this process it would seem that a more streamlined and development friendly process could be achieved.

Protecting Endangered Species

It’s easy to become jaded to the concept of protecting certain species that don’t seem to have any significant impact or presence in our lives.  An example here locally is the Indiana bat is considered an endangered species and consequently developers cannot clear trees during the late spring through mid-fall months because of concerns of damaging their habitat.  Whether it’s a bat or a moth or a salamander again we have years and years of information and statistics on these matters and therefore the permit process seems overly difficult and doesn’t seem to address the wealth of information that we now have.

Shared Information

It would be advantageous to all parties to have the wealth of information that has been accumulated over the years since both the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act went into effect by creating a clearinghouse for this information allowing new applications to utilize past experience and information and therefore expediting the processing of new permit applications.

Building Permits

Approved Buildings Permit concept with approved residential building project

When it comes to submitting the actual building permits,  in many areas the processing  is delayed due to the lack of trained plan reviewers.  In the state of Ohio building departments have 30 days to review and respond to a building permit application and if they find any deficiencies within that application revisions of those plans to correct those deficiencies are then subject to another 30 day.  Some building departments will allow for what’s called a foundation only permit which will allow a contractor to proceed with construction while gathering the necessary information to correct the planned efficiencies for work beyond the foundation. There would seem to be very little reason for all municipalities to allow this.

Some ways to expedite this process would be to allow builders to submit standard plans that they will build repeatedly and therefore won’t require to be reviewed each and every time. 

Another method would be to allow the builders to have these plans reviewed and stamped by registered architects which should mean that the municipality would not be required to spend any time reviewing the plan and could process it immediately upon submission.

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