Permit/Approval Streamlining
To better spur interest in building up downtown, the City of Santa Rosa has looked into ways to trim time and fees for policy permitting in the design review process, as well as create an express permitting process for programmatic permitting.
Part of the reasoning for this cut in costs and time in the Downtown area are addressed in a report created by the Council of Infill Builders to address the area's housing shortage.
The passing of City Council Ordinance ORD-2018-012 has allowed the design review process to be cut 70% in time and 62.5% in costs, and it created an express permitting program for interested developers that cuts time by 66%. Developers in the downtown core can expecxt to pay $9,000 for permits and have the review run-time of about 3 months. In addition, the Express Permitting Program cuts time from about 18 months to 6 months total when in each of planning, engineering and building review.