Many people in Atlanta are wishing permit turnaround times were still the same as they were some years back, when an interior finish under 3000 s/f could be completed in one day.
Unfortunately, computerization has done away with that forever. Now, best case is typically three weeks and more often four to five. Bear in mind, there are a number of other metro permit offices that offer similar turnaround times.
Recently the city has given the reviewers ten business days to review all plans. At first glance, this might seen unreasonable, but when you consider the volume of activity which accompanies the new system, which is redundant and adds a lot of data entry to the process, then it becomes understandable.
Unfortunately, the time spent getting the plans to the reviewer can be from 1 to 10 days. This is difficult to understand, because this is a simple process.
Our estimate is that the reviewers are doing about five permits a day each. That would be a snap dealing with paper plans. But, using dual monitors to do the review is very restrictive and leads to a lot of double checking. We know – we are doing it that way ourselves.
So, our message to you is – be happy with the turnaround you are now getting, because as volume increases we don’t forecast an improvement, but rather the contrary.
