Austin-based developer Stratus Properties is building Amarra Villas, a residential development off Southwest Parkway near Barton Creek.[/caption]Some businesses could soon have access to a process that would help projects move through Austin’s notoriously long permitting process faster.
By November, city staff will include provisions for protecting construction workers for nonresidential development projects in draft program guidelines that Austin City Council will consider as part of plans for expedited permitting.
Council approved funds to staff an expedited permitting program in the city’s fiscal year 2016-17 budget, and the program would launch March 1, said Rodney Gonzales, director of the city’s development services department.
The new process will not replace the existing one but will aim to speed up the timeline for some projects.
“The premise is that [business owners will be] having a time value savings that is greater than what the dollar cost is for going through expedited permitting,” Gonzales said.
How it will work
To obtain city permits, applicants must go through multiple reviews with different departments, Austin City Council Member Ann Kitchen said.
“What can happen today is a sort of pingpong [game] between those departments as opposed to a more coordinated approach, and that is a major, major problem,” Kitchen said.
Expedited permitting would aim to streamline the process by allowing the applicant to meet with reviewers from all departments at once to address site plan changes, Gonzales said. In exchange a business owner will pay a cost of $160-$200 per hour per expertise area, such as building, mechanical, plumbing, electric, fire, health and zoning specialties.
The process could help alleviate some of the current workload for permitting staff, as expedited permitting will be handled by a separate team, he said.
Commercial as well as multifamily projects will be able to take advantage of expedited permitting, which could help businesses open sooner and bring more supply of needed rental housing into Austin, Gonzales said.
Area growth has been unprecedented, making it hard for city staff to keep up with demand for permits, said Beau Armstrong, CEO of Austin-based development firm Stratus Properties.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time now, and the city process has over the years grown increasingly complex, and it has had an impact on affordability,” he said. “Any effort to make it a more efficient process that results in cost savings is welcome.”
City staff introduced draft program guidelines to stakeholders Oct. 5, according to Bo Delp, Better Builder director with the Workers Defense Project. The WDP, along with Austin Interfaith, the Central Texas Building Trade Unions, Liberal Austin Democrats, developers and contractors, held a rally previously to ask the city to ensure workers receive protections in expedited permitting.
“Some of the biggest projects that the city of Austin will see will have to meet these [new] worker protection standards,” he said, explaining projects valued at $7.5 million or less or 75,000 square feet or smaller will be exempt from worker protections as outlined in the draft guidelines.
“We believe the city of Austin should reward businesses who are willing to make some very common-sense investments in their workforce and to ensure that as Austin grows the men and women who build our city have access to good and safe jobs,” Delp said.
In September, the council approved worker protections such as provision of a living wage, safety training and workers’ compensation as requirements for only commercial projects that use the expedited permitting process. Kitchen sponsored the resolution.
Despite many entrepreneurs, contractors and consumers asking for a more streamlined system, not everyone is satisfied with the proposal.
Rebecca Melancon, executive director of the Austin Independent Business Alliance, said she takes issue with the costs associated with worker protections being tacked on to the expedited permitting process. Initially she was concerned monitoring costs would create a burden on small businesses, but exemptions for smaller and less expensive projects in the current draft guidelines will alleviate that concern “if they stay that way,” she said.
“We want Austin’s construction workers to be treated fairly, reasonably, the way they should be. There are better ways [than this] to do that,” she said.
Business owners will have to pay for monitoring to ensure they meet worker protections standards. Based on projects the WDP has monitored, an average industry cost of monitoring is $1.25 per square foot with a cost cap of $60,000 per year—so, for a 5,000-square-foot building valued at more than $7.5 million, monitoring would cost more than $6,000 annually, Gonzales said.
