As the latest survey reveals, Portland's quest to refine its permitting process for building projects continues to be a work in progress. The City of Portland's recent customer satisfaction survey, covered between June 11 and June 25, sought to gather insights from those who have navigated the building permit system since March 2023, as reported yesterday by Portland Permitting & Development. Gathering feedback from 2,661 building permit customers, the survey revealed that the efforts to enhance the permitting processes have positively impacted customer satisfaction, but there remains significant room for improvement.
The survey, which did not occur in 2023, is part of an ongoing effort to streamline the city’s interactions with permit applicants. Engagement with city experts via email and phone received higher satisfaction ratings, indicating progress in these areas. According to customer feedback in the survey results, there is an appreciation for the helpfulness and responsiveness of city reviewers. Still, there's also a clear signal that more is needed to optimize the review cycle. For instance, one customer expressed frustration over "unnecessarily cumbersome" items in the checksheet comments, demanding consistency and dialogue – a sentiment echoed in various forms by others, according to the City of Portland, Oregon.
When delving into specific phases of the permitting process, the survey's respondents indicated the "Under review" phase as notably challenging, with over half considering it "difficult" or "very difficult." The pain points here lie in engaging with the city’s reviewers, meeting code requirements, and dealing with what some see as bureaucratic redundancies. One customer, troubled by the process, mentioned that checksheet comments posed as dialogue rather than formal and impersonal requirements might ease the process. This suggestion touches upon the need for transparency and consistency, a recurrent theme throughout the survey.
The unification of formerly separate development bureaus, which occurred on July 1, is set to address such issues by creating more streamlined processes. Interim director David Kuhnhausen points to the survey as a tool providing "helpful guidance to address the pain points," according to the City of Portland, Oregon news release. Nonetheless, challenges persist, especially in the initial research phase, with customer comments pointing to the difficulties of navigating the city's website for permit-related information. One respondent highlighted struggling to find clear instructions for drawing requirements, shedding light on the need for a more user-friendly and informative online presence.
