Community Development

An effective permitting process prioritizes the needs of applicants as much as those of staff

Fundamental elements of an effective permit process include:

• • Accountability
• • Clarity of requirements
• • Consistent processes and code application
• • Timely Service

The Matrix Consulting Group is an industry leader in the evaluation of existing processes and the development of new processes to streamline permitting without impacting code compliance or the thoroughness of plan review.

Case Study: DeKalb County, GA

An appropriate organizational structure and staffing allocation is fundamental to managing planning and building functions

Just as important as having the right number of staff, is having the correct positions and organizational structure. We tailor our organizational assessments to ensure that your organization is appropriately structured to facilitate the provision of services. We evaluate alternatives including consolidated Community Development Departments (including Planning, Building, Code Enforcement, and related plan review functions – such as Fire, Engineering, etc.) and decentralized structures. We look at the number and types of positions allocated to providing services and make recommendations on changing in the numbers and types of positions that are utilized.

Our overall focus is ensuring staffing models and an organizational structure that provides quality technical review and inspections services in a customer-focused approach.

Case Study: Redlands, CA

The selection of a permitting system will impact how effectively permit services can be provided

Applicants are increasingly demanding higher and higher levels of technology and automation, including the availability of electronic plan submittal and online access to permitting processes. Since permitting systems are generally replaced infrequently, making the correct choice is critical to your organization.

The Matrix Consulting Group has experience with almost every widely used permitting system on the market. Coupled with our operational evaluation experience, this provides a unique perspective to assist clients in developing a detailed assessment of functionality requirements that is tailored to your organization’s unique needs.

Understanding the perceptions held by customers is necessary to effective manage community development operations

Matching customer’s expectations of service levels to the organization’s capacity to provide services is necessary to maintain a well-functioning community development operation.

There are many effective tools to understanding how well the needs of customers are being met, including:

• • Online surveys
• • Focus groups
• • SWOT analysis
• • Individual Interviews with prior applicants

We have expertise in utilizing these tools to fully understand your customer’s views of the quality and timeliness of community development services, as well as in developing approaches to improve these perceptions.

Partner with your applicants by establishing appropriate service level standards for entitlements, plan reviews and inspections

To effectively manage workloads and provide a consistent level of service to customers, organizations should adopt defined turnaround times for the administrative review and approval of applications. Monitoring the organization’s performance against these standards enables managers to make objective resource allocation decisions to ensure that an appropriate and consistent service level is met.

Based upon our work with dozens of communities, coupled with our experience completing over 100 fee studies, we have extensive data to utilize in establishing reasonable and tailored service level standards to meet your organization’s needs.