As the City of Dallas seeks to alleviate the permitting backlog that has slowed the building and construction process, the development services department recently moved to fill empty positions in its ranks.
Dallas’ Development Services Department (DSD) held a hiring event Tuesday to fill multiple positions for the city, including engineers, architects, senior plan examiners, and combination inspectors.
The hiring event occurred on October 18 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the sixth floor of the J. Erik Jonsson Library, located at 1515 Young St.
“The Development Services Department needs you! We currently have 19 positions open, so we’re looking for some great candidates,” the DSD said in a social media post advertising the event.
Current job openings in the department included multiple engineering positions, building, electrical, plumbing, and signs inspectors, a multi-disciplined lead plans examiner, a senior architect, an engineer, and a plans examiner.
The individual leading the department’s hiring charge is DSD Director Andrew Espinoza. Espinoza was placed at the helm of Dallas’ development services in June after it went nearly two years without a director. The absence of a DSD director was one of the factors contributing to the current backlog of building permits burdening the City.
With several months now under his belt, Espinoza has sought to dig the City out of its log-jammed building permit process, as reported by The Dallas Express.
Earlier this month, Development Services partnered with the City of Dallas Small Business Center to provide an overview of the permitting process at their Small Business Summit. The session highlighted information for establishing, expanding, and relocating a small business in the City of Dallas.
Dallas’ current process, although allegedly slowly improving as of early September, has drawn the ire of developers and builders who rely on an efficient and smooth process but are instead stuck dealing with a slow and costly one that can cost developers between $200–$300 per project per day, as reported by The Dallas Express.
Besides those gained at Tuesday’s hiring event, Espinoza and his department have made other internal hires over the past several months.
“We have hired several new members to the department with the express goal of expanding our reach to different (possibly unaware) communities in Dallas that are currently, for whatever reason, beyond the reach of the department’s external communication and customer initiatives,” Espinoza told The Dallas Express.