King County permitting staff aims to be consistent, flexible and fast

In her July 27 Op-Ed, guide Betsy MacWhinney raises issues concerning the tempo at which the King County Allowing Division critiques and points permits. There are a number of misrepresentations in her piece, particularly her assertion relating to processing occasions for single-family properties in unincorporated King County which were permitted this yr. For the document, the common time for approval of a brand new single-family dwelling allow has been 224 enterprise days, and the median time has been 179 enterprise days, reflecting county time reviewing plans and candidates adjustments/revisions. These figures are far lower than the 401 days that MacWhinney claimed.

In a bigger sense, King County Allowing has made important strides on allow backlogs and processing occasions for the reason that pandemic (after we skilled a lack of employees) and are regularly engaged on course of enhancements throughout all allow sorts. We now have been traditionally constant on the appliance of the important areas code with all candidates, together with the examples cited by MacWhinney.

Curiously, in all three of the examples she cites, allowing employees exercised flexibility {and professional} judgment to attain the client’s targets. Within the first case, we allowed the alternative of a nonconforming deck and required the applicant to take away constructions constructed with out a allow. Within the subsequent instance, we allowed a backyard to stay, regardless of its location in a important space that ought to solely embody native vegetation. And within the ultimate instance, we allowed for the allowing of a carport and prompt higher species of vegetation for mitigation that may be extra more likely to survive. MacWhinney uncared for to say any of those info.

Our employees works diligently to assist candidates obtain their targets for a undertaking and adjust to code. We share the objective of a quick, environment friendly, seamless allow course of. We acknowledge that we’re not but there as a division, however we’re always working towards that objective. We work with the broader improvement group and, from that dialogue, have made a number of course of enhancements. We welcome anybody who’s prepared to interact in an excellent religion dialog to collaborate with our employees to enhance this course of.