Customers share candid assessments of permitting system

Published

November 19, 2024 11:35 am

In this article

The City of Portland sought the views of 2,661 building permit customers between June 11 and June 25. These customers applied for various types of construction-related permits between March 1, 2023, and May 31, 2024. Four hundred sixty-five customers submitted responses, achieving a participation rate of 17 percent.

The results indicate that improvements made to the City's permitting processes have some effect on customer satisfaction and that more work is needed.

This survey builds on two similar efforts from 2021 and 2022. (No survey was conducted in 2023.) The core questions in this survey focused on:

• The ease or difficulty with which customers experienced different phases of the permit cycle
• Levels of satisfaction with different types of engagement with City permitting staff
• Areas of the permit cycle on which to prioritize future improvements

Engagements with City experts achieve higher marks for satisfaction

Respondents were mostly positive when asked to rate their levels of satisfaction with different types of engagement with City permitting experts. Excluding the "not applicable" responses, customers rated highly their engagements with City staff over email (53.3 percent "satisfied" or "very satisfied") and by phone (53.2 percent "satisfied" or "very satisfied") to address questions and concerns. These numbers indicate improvements over 2022 results, in which 43.4 percent of respondents indicated some level of satisfaction with their email correspondence with City staff, and 45.3 percent indicated satisfaction with their phone interactions with City staff.

Customers also rated highly their experiences with free 15-minute appointmentswith City staff to ask questions before submitting their permit applications: 64.2 percent rated their experiences as "satisfied" or "very satisfied" in the latest survey, compared with 61.6 percent in 2022 (again excluding the "not applicable" responses).

"Most reviewers I have worked with have been very helpful, quick to respond, and descriptive in their checksheet items,"said one customer.

"I definitely appreciate the phone calls from examiners pre-checksheet that have often allowed small changes to be made to the prints without having to invoke the checksheet process. More of that please,"wrote another customer.

More improvements needed to review cycle

For the first time, participants were asked to rate whether a particular phase of the permitting process was easy or difficult on a five-point scale (plus a sixth "not applicable" option). The middle option of "neither easy nor difficult" earned the largest individual share of responses on six of the seven phases listed. However, a majority of respondents (57.9 percent) rated the "Under review" cycle of the permitting process as either "difficult" or "very difficult." This is the phase of the permitting process in which City professionals review submitted construction plans and engage with customers to address corrections needed to meet codes.

Customers provided candid feedback. "I found that many of the checksheet comments for my project were unnecessarily cumbersome and just created busy-work, such as copying information already listed in the project manual onto the drawings,"said one customer. "There was also little consistency with checksheet comments issued for other CoP [City of Portland] projects in my office, which is frustrating. Would have been great if some of our reviewers reached out with follow-up questions via email rather than just using the formal checksheet comments as a form of dialogue."

Another customer responded, "As a first-time permit applicant, I've found the process exceptionally bureaucratic. Many of the comments in the check sheet holding my permit from being issued are completely irrelevant to what we're trying to accomplish. They've also asked us to overlay zoning data onto our site plan using software we don't have and don't have the skill set to us[e], so it needs to be outsourced."

More than 44 percent of survey respondents also rated the research phase, before submitting a permit application, as either "difficult" or "very difficult," excluding the "not applicable" responses.

One customer mentioned, "First time applying for permit. Most frustrating part was looking for information about the process on the website. Felt like information and links led me in circles. I was looking for a clear instructions on drawing requirements for small project. It took a long time to find and then had a difficult time finding the page again later. The rest of the process from submittal to issue of permit seemed to go smoothly and appreciate the updates I received."

Another customer requested "Better explanations on the website of what needs to be submitted for different permit reviews, an explanation of review timelines for different reviews: For example the building permit took several weeks of back and forth, but the associated electrical permit took no time and so I ran right up to the expiration date on the trade permit. If I had known that I didn't need to apply for it until after the building permit was approved that would not have been an issue."

Customers share priorities for improvement

Participants were provided with a list of six different elements of the permitting cycle and asked to rank which areas should be highest priority for continuous improvement. The permit review process (reducing wait times, ensuring consistency in decision-making) was ranked as the top priority for ongoing work, followed closely by ensuring greater clarity in checksheets (through which permit reviewers ask for corrections to plan to ensure compliance with building codes) and improving the permit application submittal process.

"It would be great if the actual code was understood by everybody speaking about it with those of us filing permits,"said one customer. "My experience was that I got different answers, depending on who I talked to, which made the process very confusing."

"Please try and get all initial checksheet comments into round 1,"another customer suggested. "Having new items appear in the 2nd and 3rd round is frustrating, especially as it can often feel like a stall tactic. Staffing up to provide a solid review in the first round, and not just issuing a few items in round 1 to reset the clock, is appreciated."

Permitting bureaus combined in July

This survey was conducted before the unificationof the former Bureau of Development Services with the development review teams from the Environmental Services, Transportation and Water bureaus and the Urban Forestry division of Portland Parks & Recreation. These teams came together to form Portland Permitting & Development on July 1.

This scheduling of the survey was intentional so a third set of data points for the permitting system, under the previous multi-bureau structure, could be obtained. Future surveys will track customer feedback for the combined permitting bureau.

"Our experienced staff is dedicated to providing timely service and ensuring the safety of Portland's buildings," said David Kuhnhausen, interim director of Portland Permitting & Development. "Our customers are our partners in this effort. This survey provides us with helpful guidance to address the pain points and validates our efforts at continuous improvement."

How the results will be applied

As with its two predecessors, the results of this survey continue to inform the efforts of Portland Permitting & Development and the Permit Improvement Projectto improve and update processes. These include an initiative to streamline the City of Portland's website to give permit customers clearer pathways to find the information they need. The City is also undertaking a multi-bureau Code Alignment Projectto improve how multiple development-related codes work together and create a clearer regulatory path to permit approval.

Additionally, the goals for the unification of permitting functions implemented this past July are consistent with the survey results: fewer hand-offs between review teams and more predictable, consistent and transparent reviews. Survey results support ongoing efforts to be more responsive to customer feedback.

Full results from this survey, including customers' comments, are available to download from the document below.