The South Central Planning and Development Commission has been selected to provide expedited building plan reviews for the overworked, understaffed East Baton Rouge Parish Department of Development’s permits office.
A committee earlier this fall selected the Houma-based regional planning commission from among several applicants that responded to a Request for Proposals to provide the much needed service.
As any builder or developer will tell you, delays in the city-parish permits office have been an ongoing source of frustration for the past three years. Officials have attributed the problem primarily to a chronic workforce shortage in the department, where building plan reviewers make as little as $30,000 per year.
Under the terms of the deal with SCPDC—which goes before the Metro Council Wednesday for approval—the city-parish will put the agency on retainer at a cost of $100,000 a year to provide building plan reviews within a guaranteed time frame of 21 days for commercial building plans and seven days for residential plans.
Applicants interested in using the SCPDC instead of the city permits office will pay an extra fee based on the square footage of the building for which they are seeking permits. Department of Development Director Cary Chauvin says the fee will be several cents per square foot but that the total cost for expedited review will be minimal.
“This is the relief that the construction industry and the permits office have been waiting for,” says Chauvin, who has been working with the development community and others in the city-parish to try to find a solution to the problem. “It’s been a long time coming.”
The new service could be available for applicants to use as soon as November, provided the Metro Council approve the new arrangement and the contract with the agency is executed, Chauvin says. The SCPDC is one of eight regional planning commissions around the state. It has experience providing building plan review services to other municipalities, Chauvin says.
—Stephanie Riegel
