Dive Brief:
- Pittsburgh is reforming its permitting processes, starting with efforts to streamline how projects enter the city’s permitting system.
- Mayor Corey O’Connor on Wednesday announced progress on a number of modernization efforts he decreed in an earlier executive order, including virtual inspections, permit trackers and an EZ Permits “fast lane” for multiple routine residential and commercial permit types. EZ Permits is a pilot program to create a faster permitting path for common, low-risk work.
- “This first phase of improvements will help applicants spend less time waiting and more time getting projects done,” O’Connor said in a news release. “People doing routine home improvements used to have to wait over a week to get their permit and now will get that permit in as little as one business day.”
Dive Insight:
As housing needs grow, cities across the country are exploring efforts to update permitting processes to speed up development.
Pittsburgh’s planning commission in July approved a package of zoning amendments aimed at modernizing the city’s zoning code for residents and small businesses, the mayor’s office said.
Pittsburgh lacks approximately 11,000 affordable homes for the city’s lowest-income residents, estimates show. It also has around 20,000 vacant homes, more than 15% of its total housing stock, among the highest in the nation.
The city’s new EZ Permits initiative targets residential and commercial permit types that do not require design review with a goal of one-day approval. Eligible residential projects can include window or door replacement, roofing, removal of a non-load bearing wall and installing or replacing siding.
The city’s virtual inspections are available for similar projects, including deck or porch repairs, electrical and mechanical projects and demolitions.
The city also launched a permit tracker in July allowing applicants to monitor their applications, the mayor’s office said.
The next phases of the mayor’s permit reform plan target the review and inspection and completion stages.
“Pittsburgh needs to grow,” O’Connor’s Jan. 6 executive order stated. “We need to make it easier to build new housing, revitalize our business districts, and bring new amenities to our communities.”
