Permit Streamlining for Private Sector Projects

In 2003, the City of Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) established a team to streamline environmental permits for City-managed projects. Today, this Streamlining Team is comprised of representatives from city, state, and federal regulatory agencies (BES, 2015a). Facilitated by BES, the team meets monthly with public sector project managers / applicants. The team reviews projects early in the design phase and offers collective feedback regarding the types of permits needed, suggested actions, potential areas of difficulty, and other advice to help ease the otherwise lengthy and often disjointed permitting process (BES, 2015b). Periodic internal assessments by BES and a third-party assessment conducted by Portland State University’s Center for Public Service (CPS) in 2014 found that the process fosters collaboration, saves time, improves the overall environmental quality of projects, and improves consistency in agency decision making (Mogren and Fitch, 2014; Reed, 2014). The Streamlining Team’s success generated interest among City bureau leaders about whether the results from the public sector projects could be duplicated with projects being carried out within the city by private sector developers.