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笔辞谤迟濒补苍诲鈥檚 Bureau of Development Services recently launched showing the average number of days it takes for building permits to pass through each step of the review process.

The Permit Metric Dashboard is 鈥渄esigned to give customers a sense of what to expect,鈥� BDS spokesman Ken Ray said.

The city鈥檚 permit review process has drawn criticism for its long lead times. This was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought an enormous permit backlog. At its height in summer 2020, about 1,200 building permits were in the queue, and customers were waiting eight weeks to meet with staff after submitting applications.

The paper-dependent permit review process challenged BDS when employees began working remotely. But in December 2020, it launched Development Hub PDX 鈥� an online building intake platform. The bureau has since steadily reduced the backlog.

The number of permits set up for review to this point in 2022 has already surpassed last year鈥檚 total. As of publication, 2,088 commercial permits (3,853 residential permits) have been set up this year, compared to 2,085 commercial permits (3,852 residential permits) for all of 2021.

The Permit Metric Dashboard gives a 20-business-day snapshot of how long each review step takes on average, from application submittal to the first scan to permit setup and to approval to issue (awaiting final payments by the applicant).

In a recent 20-business-day span, the city鈥檚 review staff needed, on average, two days to check 111 commercial permits (172 residential permits) applications for completeness and about 14 business days in total to set up commercial permits (eight days for residential).

From permit application submittal to approval to issue, the average time is 105 days.

The dashboard is intended to provide a better sense of how long the permit review process takes, Ray said.

Early next year, the dashboard will be updated with a breakdown of the time spent by each review team looking at a permit, Ray said. For example, customers will be able to see how much time, on average, the life and safety team reviews a permit in comparison to the zoning team.

There are also plans to add an indicator showing how much time a permit is within the hands of city staff for review versus the applicant for responses to questions.

Along with the new dashboard, BDS also recently regarding customer satisfaction with the permit review process. More than half of respondents reported that they found on the city鈥檚 website information they needed to prepare their application materials 鈥� a 10.2 percent increase from last year鈥檚 survey.

After reviewing last year鈥檚 survey results, BDS staffers increased their focus on making sure permit applicants understand what needs to be submitted to get to the first review, Ray said.

This year鈥檚 survey indicated that more customers read (92.93 percent) and used (93.38 percent) the minimum submittal requirements in preparing their permit applications than the previous year (2021 figures were 90.75 and 81.49 percent, respectively).

BDS intends to survey customers annually to better gauge which areas of the permit review process can be improved and what other information can be added to the city鈥檚 website, Ray said.