The City of Dallas Development Services Department logged a slowdown in new single-family permit approvals in November.
DSD required 11 median days to issue a new single-family permit in November when taking into account the combined time applications spent with customers and staff, according to the latest data from the department’s residential permit activity dashboard (RPAD).
Although DSD more or less stayed in line with its internal goal for the month, the issuance time was up by 83.33% compared to the six days reported in October. Despite the rebound in median issued days in November, DSD managed to lower the turnaround period from over two months in January to just under two weeks less than a year later, RPAD data shows.
During November, 127 new single-family permit applications were submitted to DSD for approval, a sharp drop from the 192 submitted in October and the 206 submitted in September. Though submissions were low, DSD ended up approving 177 new single-family permits for issuance in November, a tad below the 189 issued the month prior.
DSD’s median number of submissions and issuances from January to November was 181 and 185, respectively. Meanwhile, the median issuance time during the 11-month period was 16 days (staff and application time) and nine days (staff time only).
In total, DSD had 244 permits remaining in its queue at the end of November. However, 56 were submitted via paper and were not included in the electronic calculation. This leaves 188 new single-family permits in various stages of review.
For context, DSD had 51 permits in the pre-screen review stage, 105 in the department review stage, and 32 in the post-review stage at the end of November.
City Manager T.C. Broadnax and DSD Director Andrew Espinoza have implemented changes to improve and accelerate Dallas’ residential and commercial building permit process since the world has resumed relatively normal operations post-COVID 19 lockdowns.
Though residential permit delays have slowed, commercial delays are still an issue for the department, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
