What's happening
DSD staffing was one of several topics addressed July 30 as City Council members continue to review Austin's proposed fiscal year 2024-25 budget. DSD, based out of the city Permitting and Development Center in Highland, handles all aspects of city building reviews and permitting.
The department now has hundreds of staffers and recently grew its workforce by dozens of positions in 2018 and 2020. Since a department merge last March, DSD has also included city code compliance work.
DSD's proposed budget for FY 2024-25 calls to remove about two dozen full-time development staff positions—many of which were sitting vacant—due largely to "contraction in development activity" in Austin, according to the budget. At the same time, some code enforcement positions would be added.
Looking ahead, the city's FY 2025-26 budget plan would cut a further 55 DSD employees. Budget Officer Kerri Lang said the changes were proposed in an attempt to "right-size" the department the face of a potentially lower workload following its recent growth.DSD Director José Roig said the department would plan to use more temporary or contracted staff for support if development activity ramps back up, rather than budgeting for additional full-time employees.
If the adjustments are approved, council member Ryan Alter said the department should still make sure it's ready for a return to increased construction levels in the future.
"My concern is that it feels like we’re always not only reactive, but just behind," Alter said. "When we got to the surge in development, we were behind. And then we had to take time to staff up, and by the time we staffed up there was a big backlog. And now we have those individuals and we’re trying to clear some of that backlog, and now we’re going to get rid of a bunch of people and it feels like we’re going to end up right back there again."
The city also anticipates DSD's spending and revenues will fall by millions of dollars amid the contraction. Given that outlook, some development fees could increase by over 10% in FY 2024-25 to keep up city collections.
Also of note
The staffing changes would come as DSD continues working on fixes to Austin's permitting process, which local builders and residents had asked to correct for years.
City officials hired a consultant last year to dig into city development services and find ways to improve some processes. Out of almost four dozen recommendations, 23 have been completed while 19 are still in the works.
DSD officials said the changes have led to a dramatic decrease in the timeline for commercial site plan reviews so far.
The city aims to complete such reviews in 28 days on average, but as of last March it was typically taking closer to 100. Assistant DSD Director Keith Mars said that timeline was trimmed to about 32 days by the end of 2023, in part because of some recent changes.
Alter called that update an "encouraging" sign, especially looking ahead to a time when more construction starts getting underway.
"I think that’s the most important thing right now, is to get the process really fundamentally strong," he said. "We know development is going to happen again in this city. And if we don’t have the process right we’re going to end up right back where we were.”
