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$3.27 billion and counting: Money going into Denver construction projects set to blow away record in 2017

The amount of money being pumped into construction projects in Denver is on a record-smashing pace in 2017. And, despite a rebuke from the auditor on the topic this summer, the city’s planning and development office says new procedures, technology and a larger staff are helping it deliver faster, better customer service amid the building rush.

The estimated value of permitted work in the city through Oct. 7 this year was $3.27 billion, the community planning and development department says. That’s creeping up on the $3.65 billion spent in all of 2016, which set a single-year record in the city, Denver CPD officials say. Through Oct. 7 last year, permits had been granted on $2.62 billion worth of projects.

The totals represent the cost of labor and materials for a project as estimated by the permit seeker. Permits are required for most projects undertaken in Denver, from raising new buildings, to remodeling a home, to repairs like installing a new heating and cooling system. Some projects require multiple permits that could be pulled over multiple years.

In sheer number, 59,029 permits had been granted through Oct. 7 this year, almost 8,700 more than the 50,348 granted over the same roughly 10-month period in 2016, city officials said. In total, the city awarded 64,624 permits in 2016, down from 73,740 in 2015 and 67,818 in 2014. The single-year record for permits is 79,035 set in 1999, but that total is misleading, officials say.

“The way permits are counted and the types of permits issued has changed,” community planning and development spokeswoman Andrea Burns said. “We believe that last year was essentially the busiest year in terms of volume of permits in Denver.”

Burns and colleague, Laura Swartz, noted installing a hot water heater once required three permits, for instance. Now, it takes just one.

The department is touting improved service and decreased wait times in recent months. Since introducing appointments for some services on Sept. 11, cCPD has seen wait times at its counters in the Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building drop from an average of 72 minutes cto 36 minutes.

The department was the subject of a scathing report from Denver Auditor Timothy O’Brien in August that said application wait times and disorganized filing was slowing down progress at a critical time for a booming city.

“Imbalances in staff training and long wait times are holding up the business of growing and developing the City of Denver,” O’Brien said in a written statement Aug. 17.

CDP officials argued then that improvements had either already been made or were underway at the time to address those concerns. Average wait times today bear that out, with the plan review times chart on the city website showing that average reviews for five out of eight types of plans commonly submitted to the city are hitting targets, and the other three –fire logs, zoning permits, and zoning code interpretations/use determinations— are no more than a week behind schedule on average.

In addition to appointments for some of its busiest services–log in for large-scale commercial and residential projects, single-family/duplex walk-throughs and logged-in plan pick-ups– CPD has also be offering electronic permitting for certain things this year like scheduling inspections. Customers have taken advantage of e-permitting more than 10,000 times since it was introduced in July, Swartz said.

“We do think we will be rolling out appointments for all of our services,” Swartz said of future plans to increase efficiency.

CPD has also boosted service the old fashioned way: More manpower. The department has 271 equivalent full-time positions this year, up from 242 in 2016. The increase coincides with a city-wide hiring blitz. Department staff say the increase in bodies is helping decrease waits despite record high permit volume and increasing complexity of projects.

“Once the recession ended and things were really ramping up in the construction industry we were experiencing delays of several weeks in all of our services,” Burns said. “For customers who have been working with us for a couple years, I think they have seen quite a bit of relief.”