Office Review Baltimore City Department of Housing & Community Development

[Eric]

 

[Eric]

Starting Baltimore City Department of Housing and Community Development off with a 2/5 rating based on Google reviews (https://www.google.com/search?q=Baltimore+City+Department+of+Housing+and+Community+Development).

 

[Fenix]

I bet some of those delays can be chalked up to COVID, so it's taking far longer than usual to get permits approved. My father-in-law had to go through them to get a permit, and they were short-staffed because so many were out sick.

 

[Eric]

I bet some of those delays can be chalked up to COVID, so it's taking far longer than usual to get permits approved. My father-in-law had to go through them to get a permit, and they were short-staffed because so many were out sick.

Wow, I just looked at the Google reviews for this office and it's amazing how incredibly negative they all are. You're take on the situation based on your father-in-law's experience - COVID delays and staff out sick - seems relatively diplomatic by comparison. Most reviewers appear to cite unresponsiveness and general lack of professionalism as the primary issues with this office.

Here are just a few highlights:

Worse than atrocious. They don’t answer calls, don’t respond to emails and are far worse than incompetent on a good day.

As a contractor you deal with a lot of permitting offices and while none are fun, none are bad on the level of Baltimore City's Building Permits and Inspections Systems.

Literally the number 1 reason I won't invest in Baltimore City is because of this office.

A culture of unaccountability has clearly taken hold at Baltimore's building department. On one level this is terrible simply because of the poor quality of public service that taxpayers are receiving. On another level, it appears these organizational problems are actually affecting the city's reputation and making it a less attractive place to do business - multiple reviewers say as much in their comments. The people who actually run the government need to take their jobs seriously, otherwise the whole thing doesn't really work.