To speed up the notoriously slow review process for issuing permits in East Baton Rouge Parish, Mayor Sharon Weston Broome’s administration is planning to farm out additional building plan review services to a firm already doing some work for the parish.
At a meeting later this month, the administration will ask the Metro Council to approve an expansion of the city’s contract with South Central Planning and Development Commission, which already reviews some plans to ensure compliance with state building codes and regulations, to also begin reviewing plans for compliance with the parish zoning code.
The parish would still have to technically issue the permits, but once SCPDC signs off on them, they would be considered approved.
Under the terms of the deal, SCPDC would agree to review all commercial building plans within 21 days and to review plan revisions within five days. Residential plans would be reviewed within seven days, and revisions reviewed within three days.
Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Kelvin Hill, who oversees the six departments formerly known as public works, says the agreement is, in part, a product of the $300,000 government efficiency study being conducted for the parish by consulting firm Management Partners. The city is working its way through an action plan prepared by the consultants to make the public works departments, among others, more efficient and responsive to citizens’ needs.
“Previously, South Central did a piece of the plan review but then it had to flow back through our office so it was still bottlenecking and took a long time,” Hill says. “This change that we identified in the efficiency study will be significant for us and allow us get to where we need to be.”
According to the proposed resolution, which was introduced at the April 24 Metro Council meeting, the city-parish will pay SCPDC an additional $100,000 as retainer. Plan applicants will pay the rest. Commercial building plan review will cost 19 cents per square foot, about 4 cents more than is currently charged. Residential plan reviews will cost 10 cents per square foot plus a flat $60 fee.
Hill, who joined Broome’s administration early this year after several years at Georgia Pacific, says coming from the private sector he understands the importance of attacking a problem that has plagued the development community for years.
“Time is money, I get that,” he says. “We have the support for this in the business community.”
