Although new home construction is still ongoing in the Cypress area, it typically takes homebuilders less than a week to obtain the correct permits from Harris County for building a new home.[/caption] The sight of construction cranes and new buildings in the Greater Houston area and Cy-Fair in particular is hard to miss as new businesses, schools and homes open in the community. Before opening the doors, though, permits must be obtained from Harris County, which has seen a steady increase in demand since 2012. "For a little over a year now, we have been seeing numbers similar to how it was prior to the [Great Recession]," said Joshua Stuckey, manager of general services for the county's engineering department. The type, number and process of permits needed can vary depending on the type of project that will be built, ranging from residential to commercial to large-scale projects like school buildings. Cy-Fair ISD is in the process of building several new schools that will open for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years, and permits for such projects can take up to three months to obtain approval, said Roy Sprague, CFISD associate superintendent for facilities, construction and support services. "We continue to see an increase in the time it takes to obtain our permits for our projects," he said. "We believe this is due to the limited resources of the county to review plans for permits, especially considering the amount of construction volume in the [Greater] Houston area." When CFISD starts the process of building a new school, district officials schedule preliminary review meetings with Harris County to discuss the overall project scope and obtain input on timelines. "Once our architects and engineers complete the design and construction documents, they submit the drawings to Harris County for review and permit approval," Sprague said. "Harris County Flood Control, traffic, fire marshal and health department are the typical reviews performed by the county." Another development hurdle the district has to overcome involves building projects in undeveloped areas of the county. If the seller of the land experiences delays with the design and plan preparation for the permit review and approvals for the utilities and roadway installation, then the county will not approve CFISD's drawings for permits until the county approves the seller's submission, Sprague said. "This has to be carefully coordinated between the district, design team and seller in order to minimize any potential delays to the project which could impact the scheduled opening date for the new school," he said. Will Holder, president of Trendmaker Homes, which builds in Cypress communities such as Towne Lake and the Lakes of Fairhaven, said it typically takes several days to go through the permit process for new homes. Unlike CFISD, Holder said his company has not seen much of a delay in the time it takes to receive permits. "Since the online permitting process began in Harris County, the process has run fairly steady at four to five days from date of application," Holder said. When homebuilders plan a new community, the company must have a land plat recorded with the county and have it pass inspection prior to submitting proposals for a residential permit, Holder said. "As for individual home permits, through the Harris County online permitting system we apply for a minimum of two permits on each individual home," he said. "These include the residential building permit and the driveway/culvert permit." Once Trendmaker completes the online process, which takes about 10 to 15 minutes, they typically are approved in about three days. Once approved, the company makes a payment online and receives the final permit electronically in one or two days. In Harris County, there are several steps business owners must take to obtain permits. "During the pre-permitting process there are two main submittals that need to be made for commercial development: a civil site plan for the property infrastructure and a fire code plan for the building," Stuckey said. "After plans are checked and approved showing that all Harris County regulations are met, the permitting process begins and applications are processed for permits to be issued." Travis Ochoa opened a new Massage Heights location in Cypress this April. He said there were no delays as a result of working with Harris County. "With our particular business, it only took a few weeks—about two to three—which is about normal," Ochoa said. "We did not have any setbacks on opening our business based on permits from Harris County. From my understanding with our contractor, Harris County is great to work with and permitting seems to go pretty easy if your [documents] are together and in order." For commercial projects, standard review time per submittal for both civil and fire code is about 10 business days, Stuckey said. The county office only handles development-based permits. "How long it takes to approve the plans really depends on how many reviews are necessary and the time it takes the design professional to address the comments and get the plans back to us between reviews," he said. "Complexity of the project is the biggest driving factor."