Department of Permitting Services Nationally Recognized for Improvements to Permitting Process

The National Association of Home Builders highlighted the work of the Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services (DPS), in a recent national report. The report, Development Process Efficiency: Cutting Through the Red Tape, highlighted the efforts of DPS as a leader in streamlining the permitting review process while maintaining the thoroughness of the review.

The report lauds the work of County Executive Ike Leggett in the streamlining initiative he introduced in 2012, which significantly trimmed the time of the permitting process. The process had been 20-30 weeks and is now reduced to 8 to 12 weeks. Site plan reviews that used to take more than a year are now required to be completed within 120 days. The time frame for building permit reviews dropped from 12 weeks to less than 30 days.