City of Spokane vows to speed business permitting processes

[Jake]

News From: Spokane Public Radio

The city of Spokane has come up with a new system to help speed up the business permitting process, and to help bring new businesses into the area through what they call a "Rapid Response Initiative". The new initiative was signed into a resolution by Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown. The team involved will address proposals that could potentially bring employment and economic growth to the area. They are looking to expand upon aerospace, automotive manufacturing, food processing, and the creative economy.

Not only that, the new initiative hopes to enhance communication and cooperation among the many city departments. Those include; Public Works, Planning, Legal, and Parks IT. This should help facilitate and speed up the process for legitimate new businesses looking to move to the area. Along with that, they hope to make it more efficient across the board.

Though the main purpose is to bring in new investments and support significant economic development projects, they expect this to be a good thing for a wider pool of applicants. So this could include families who would like to build accessory dwelling units, or ADUs for short. It could also help business owners who are looking to make tenant improvements.

This should be a step into the right direction. What do you guys think? Will other cities and towns in Washington follow this new initiative as well?

 

[Winny]

Good, this should happen in every location that is struggling when it comes to the business presence they have in the area. Spokane is moving into the right direction when it comes to their future. I wish more cities and even states would implement more systems like this.

I've always been under the impression that permitting offices are usually understaffed, so this might help a lot with the workload already on hand.

 

[Nomad]

In the age when we just leave a website when it fails to load within 10 seconds or skip video if it fails to load in less than 10 seconds, why are there laws that makes public wait for a long time? Well, I believe things like Rapid Response Initiative should be implemented nationwide so that stakeholders are not made to wait for eternity.