Permitting drops to eight weeks

EPHRATA — The wait for a building permit has gotten shorter, but the director of Grant County's community development department hopes to make it shorter still.

During a meeting called by the Grant County Economic Development Council and held between Grant County residents and the Grant County commissioners in June, Department Director David Nelson estimated the duration of the county's permitting process to construct new buildings was about 16 weeks.

Last week, Nelson said, the length of the process was down to eight to nine weeks.

"There were some changes in how we operate," he explained. "Earlier in the year we had made a decision to review plans at the desk, and we discovered it was costing us a lot of time, instead of saving us time."

So the department no longer reviews at the counter, and has issued guidelines and information sheets offering instruction to individuals on what is necessary to obtain a permit. Permits must be completed in order for the department to review, Nelson said.

"We've made that change in the way we do processes and we've also done a lot of overtime," he said. "We will continue to do some overtime and things until we get it down to where we're running around probably six weeks, and then see if we can't eke another week or so out of that to be kind of normal operating."

The department currently employs 11 people. Four people have been hired to keep up with the growth during the last three years, Nelson said.

Ideally, Nelson would like the process to maintain at about four weeks, and no more than six weeks.

Nelson believes the department has good instructions in place for what to do to get a permit. The key thing is for people to understand what is required so they're not delayed because their applications are not complete, he said.

"Most contractors have no problem with that," he said. "The ones who want to build their own home or use the caveat law which says they can build their own home, if they don't understand that, should find somebody to help them understand and get it done right. That's what will cause the delays, is if it doesn't come in complete."

Nelson said the reason the process got so lengthy was due to increased activity within the county.

"Three years ago we had kind of a standard year, then all of a sudden we had about a 35 percent increase," he said. "Last year, we had a 35 percent increase on top of that 35 percent increase, and this year we've had even more of an increase, We've just had a lot of growth and to try to envision how much we're going to have and where we're going to be at is kind of difficult."

Nelson said he is hearing a little bit of feedback about a shorter process.

"There are some who appreciate that it's down quite a bit," he said. "And there are some who appreciated finding out some of the other things to help them or assisted them."

Nelson feels good about the process being cut down, but said with a chuckle he would like to feel better.

"There's a lot of pressure there — I don't like it, the commissioners don't like it and the developers and contractors don't like it," he said.

"We're still working with the Department of Community Development to see what we can do as commissioners to help speed it up," Grant County Commissioner Cindy Carter said. "We're working on it. (The time) is almost cut in half, so that's exciting, but we've still got a ways to go."

Carter said commissioners are looking into possibly adding a computer program, Permitting in a Box, which she said has been used by Douglas County.