When Dallas City Council members convened last week, they were given an update on the state of the inefficient building permit process in the city.
The backlog of permits has been the root of much frustration for developers in Dallas, who are unable to see returns on their investments because they cannot even begin construction.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, building permits in Dallas were issued on the same day, said Kelly Reynolds, a local developer with Keen Homes.
It took an average of three days for the City to approve a Single-Family Residential (SFR) permit in Dallas in 2019.
In 2021, it reportedly took five months for Reynolds to receive a residential building permit. More recently, it took 10 weeks, he said. According to the latest DSD permit data, the process now takes an average of 40 days.
According to Reynolds, construction costs are simply more expensive when dealing with delays of this nature.
“The prices of material and labor have stabilized, so it’s up to us to get it built quickly to avoid the additional interest carry,” he said.
These long issuance times can cost developers large sums of money while their projects sit on hold, according to Phil Crone, executive director of the Dallas Builders Association (DBA).
About 80% of DBA members report an average permit delay of 10 weeks, Crone told council members during Wednesday’s session.
City leaders need to run the departments that are most critical to economic development like a business, and it needs to be entrepreneurial, Crone said.
“Currently, we can’t measure the most important bit of data on all of this, like, ‘How long is it going to take for your permit?’”
In a previous interview with The Dallas Express, Crone told the publication that he had heard complaints from builders who’ve been stuck paying upwards of $200-$300 per project per day until they were issued a permit.
This does not consider the exorbitant fees for Dallas’ expedited permit service, which has a minimum expedited plan review fee of $200 per hour.
Neither City Manager T.C. Broadnax, who identified the building permit issue as a top priority in his 100-day performance improvement plan, nor Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson were present at Wednesday’s meeting for the latest permit discussion.
Mayor Johnson was reportedly at home taking care of his sick children and Broadnax was apparently out of town, each of them missing one of the last meetings of the year regarding the City’s permitting issues.
