For the past few years, Denver Community Planning and Development, the city's planning department, has had a sluggish process for reviewing new developments, from small residential projects to large-scale apartment and condo complexes.
Developers and individuals trying to build homes -- the people the planning department calls "customers" -- were wildly dissatisfied.
The challenging pace was slowing down the process of building new homes in a city that lacks enough units for everybody who wants to live here. Some developers pulled out of the Denver market or shifted from multi-unit buildings to single-unit homes. Others have griped and lost time and money while waiting for plans to be processed.
Speeding up plan reviews and permitting times became major themes in the 2023 mayor's race.
Now, weeks into Mayor Mike Johnston's first term in office, the department is finally back at pace. And the new mayor plans to push the planning department to do more to speed up the process.
"A major focus for us this year will be on outcomes for a more efficient permitting process and a systems approach for better cross-departmental coordination to make sure we don't have individuals or businesses that are stuck in very, very long permitting waits," he told City Council in a Tuesday meeting about his proposed budget.
The planning department reported to City Council it's been on track since the end of August.
At its slowest, the department was taking more than 12 weeks to conduct an initial review of a residential plan.
"We're down to two to four weeks, as of today," Robert Peek, director of development and systems performance for the planning department, told Council. "We've made a lot of great progress on that."
