When Dallas outlined its Economic Development Plan for 2022-2032, the City underscored the importance of having a predictable, efficient, and streamlined building permit process in achieving sustainable growth over the long haul.
To ensure Dallas is on track to meet its objectives over the next decade, the City’s Development Services Department (DSD) has made significant changes over the last 18 months to address the permit backlogs, administrative bottlenecks, and staffing shortages that plagued the DSD after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We have increased our staffing levels to provide better, faster permitting services, purchased a new One Stop Permitting Center, invested in new technology, and implemented new expedited permit programs intended to make your permitting experience faster and smoother,” DSD said in its August newsletter, which covered permit activity in July.
As DSD works to facilitate development in Dallas, the City’s Economic Development Committee has asked the department to focus on three key permitting objectives over the next decade, including “streamlining the city’s building permit process to match the speed of business, approve 90% of permits within two weeks, and ensure predictable and efficient building permitting.”
With those objectives in mind, DSD achieved a strong uptick in single-family and commercial activity in July, according to permit metrics provided in August’s newsletter and data from the City’s Residential Permit Activity Dashboard.
DSD issued 207 new single-family permits in July, up from 137 the previous month and marking the third-highest issuance in 2023, dashboard data shows.
In addition, DSD’s median days to issue new single-family permits — not requiring revisions — decreased from 19 days in June to eight in July, per the newsletter. Dashboard data shows 11 median days to issue in June and nine median days in July, including those requiring revisions.
Meanwhile, the number of submitted single-family permit applications rose from 177 in June to 204 in July, a 15.25% increase, according to the dashboard data.
Commercial activity, which has slowed across DFW, remained relatively steady for Dallas in July. According to DSD’s newsletter, the department received seven new commercial plan review submittals (+1), 18 commercial additions (-31), 245 commercial remodels (+4), 21 express plan review Q-Team (-7), and 26 minor commercial Q-Team (-3).
This is supported by data provided in the department’s performance goals and metrics for 2022 and 2023.
During the month, initial reviews for each new commercial/remodel were completed within six days and met the department’s performance 15-day goal. All Q-Team initial reviews were performed within four days, DSD said in the newsletter.
As Dallas seeks to achieve long-term growth, City officials will need to continue addressing the slow permitting times and high fees under City Manager T.C. Broadnax that have burdened the development community and hindered growth in the past.
According to the newsletter, DSD is currently working on balancing its Fiscal Year 2023-2024 Budget and transitioning to an online scheduling service. In addition, DSD announced that it will review and adjust its fee schedule to better reflect the “momentous activity” taking place in Dallas.
DSD has not yet posted the new fee schedule but said it will communicate updates on the topic at a later time.
