When people think about neighborhood development and economic development, they often think of construction, new buildings, renovations, small businesses, and jobs. However, they don’t often think about the behind the scenes work that goes into those larger efforts. People spend countless hours planning, working, and developing their projects. They spend time and money to create something that will not only impact their lives, but the entire community.
One part of this behind-the-scenes work involves obtaining approval from the City. This approval often comes in the form of permits. The City of Syracuse issues dozens of different types of permits, and many times individual projects require multiple permits. To obtain permits, customers currently have to come in person to Central Permit Office to complete paper applications and drop off paper project plans. From there, applicants’ plans are disseminated to several different city departments for approval. The process can be long and tedious.
About a year ago we established a Performance Management Program. As part of this program, we set goals for how long it should take to approve different types of permit applications. Unfortunately though, we are oftentimes missing these goals.
Residential renovation - 2 weeks
Residential new construction - 4 weeks
Commercial renovation - 6 weeks
Commercial new construction - 8 weeks
Permitting Performance Management Dashboard from June 20, 2019.
In an attempt to meet these goals, and ultimately improve the neighborhood and economic development process in Syracuse, we are excited to announce that our next Innovation Priority Area is Permitting. Over the next year we will launch a comprehensive series of projects and initiatives to improve permitting customer experience, operations, communication, and process.
Check out the official announcement from Mayor Walsh below, and be sure to follow along on innovatesyracuse.com to learn more about this work!