Development Services Permitting Annual Report

At a glance

Based on auto-generated captions; names and numbers may be misheard.

What: the annual building and permitting report for fiscal year 2026, presented to council by development services.
Where it stands: presented October 14, 2026; council praised the turnaround and asked for follow-up data. No action was required.
Next: staff will give council a breakdown of rejection rates by permit type and may add a required checklist for resubmittals.

Permit applications remain far below the 2023 post-Hurricane Ian peak; just under 1,800 single-family permits (about 27% fewer than the year before).
New single-family reviews average about 12 business days; the longest review track is floodplain at about 14 days.
State House Bill 803 (5-business-day review for existing single-family permits of $15,000 or less) began July 1: 2,582 of 2,596 reviews were on time, and an automated deadline system has kept compliance at 100%.
Permitting services staff fell from 51 (2023-2024) to 25 while handling about 150,000 processing tasks (4.37 per application) and 129,000 customer contacts.
About 68% of permits pass on the first submission.
Certificates of occupancy: about $1.05 billion in single-family value and $286 million commercial.

4,612 expired permits now, down from about 8,700 in May; about 107 expired new single-family permits ("ghost homes").
Tools: automatic expiration after 180 days of inactivity, stop-work orders, code enforcement abatement, and, rarely, special magistrate authority to demolish and lien (not yet used). Some sites are frozen by lawsuits.
Active code cases get yard signs, and a public permit search tool shows permit status, stop-work orders and code cases by address.

Rachel Kaduk asked about owner notification and rejection rates; staff will send rejection rates by permit type.
William E. (Bill) Steinke suggested requiring applicants to check off every review comment on resubmittal; staff said the permitting software can enforce this.
Dr. Derrick Donnell asked how the public can see unfinished-structure cases.
Joe Kilraine noted new construction adds about $1.3 billion to a tax base near $33 billion, so next year's budget will have little room.

About 40 minutes across 1 meeting (from transcript timestamps; approximate).

Meeting	Minutes
2026-10-14 - Committee of the Whole	40

2026-10-14 - Committee of the Whole — Matthew Granboo presented the fiscal year 2026 report; council praised the improvements and asked about rejection rates, resubmittal checklists and unfinished homes.