Dallas City Officials Adapt Permitting Code for Compliance with New State Law

[Debashis]

Excited to share this amazing news with all my fellow Dallasites! You would be pleased to know that the Dallas city officials are preparing to comply with House Bill 14, which allows third-party involvement in the building permit process if the city fails to meet new permitting deadlines. The bill aims to expedite permit issuance in a city facing delays, especially in housing projects. The City staff assures readiness for the bill's implementation, despite some council members' concerns about its impact and timing. Learn more on the topic through this article.

 

[Nomad]

I have noticed that in many places, there are conflicting laws, the local laws are not in line with the state laws, and state laws are not in line with central government laws. When the laws are in conflict, it will not only be very confusing for the citizens but they will also have to suffer while getting permits or other services. It is really good that the Dallas city officials are preparing to comply with the State Laws.

 

[Heatman]

The right thing to do when you can't do something would be to outsource it to a third party entity that's going to get on the job because of how demanding it might be. This is exactly what the House Bill 14 is passed for. Home owners can't be left waiting on a permitting process for too long when it's very important to complete the process and get on with working on their home. The sooner they start implementing this law in Dallas, the better it is for everyone.

 

[Eric]

This law was supposed to go into effect September 1 but it appears that some cities, like Dallas, have experienced delays getting started with implementation. As mentioned in @Debashis' post, the new law requires that city building departments approve or deny residential and commercial building permits within a certain period of time from when the application was received (45 days). If a building department doesn't meet the deadline, the law allows permit applicants to hire their own third-party reviewer to complete the building code review so that a permit can be issued.

However, there are concerns from city officials that this approach could compromise public safety standards due to the current lack of clear guidelines and accountability for third-party reviewers. Additionally, cities like Dallas are not yet able to comply with the law because they still need to establish qualifications for the third-party reviewers who would get involved after the 45-day deadline. There’s also worry that the law might inadvertently encourage cities to deny more permits to avoid the process.

I'm looking forward to hearing whether Texas' experiment involving use of third-party reviewers is successfully able to cut down on the permitting backlog faced by building departments like Dallas'. It seems like this concept has the potential to transform how governments administer permitting requirements, so I'm really hoping it succeeds. If results are good, then hopefully we'll start seeing more states leverage third-party resources to improve permitting efficiency, like what Texas is trying to do.