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The Wait to Renovate
Luis Orozco, with his three daughters, and his wife, Birgit, thought about buying a larger house, but decided to renovate instead after finding they could not afford to move up in their own neighborhood.
(Photos By Hans Ericsson For The Washington Post)
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Mulholland noted that jurisdictions have "amazingly complicated requirements." The city of Alexandria, for instance, "requires a rodent abatement program before they permit," he said.
Local permitting agencies acknowledge that they're under pressure to keep up. They say that they're just doing their jobs, including responding aggressively to complaints from neighbors over unpermitted activity.
Some jurisdictions are moving permitting staff from commercial to residential reviews because commercial activity has been slower. Prince William County is keeping up with growth in both new residential and commercial construction and in renovation permit applications by increasing the hours on a contract with a private engineering company, said building official Eric Mays.
Mays noted that homeowners can shorten their wait if they use licensed contractors who are eligible for online permitting.
In Fairfax County, the area's largest jurisdiction, renovation and alteration permit applications are up 41 percent from a year ago, according to Audrey C. Clark, director of building plan review and permits division. Builders have actually welcomed higher permit fees in hopes that that will eventually allow for more hiring.
There has been a similar increase in activity in Prince George's County. Applications for renovations and additions there jumped from 816 last year to 1,144 this year, says Sarah Bouldin-Carr, acting associate director for the county's permits and review division.
Loudoun County applications are up about 14 percent this year, to 3,514 from 3,091 for January through May 2004, but county officials say booming new construction is still the biggest generator of permit work.
While Montgomery County has seen permit times lengthen and is aware of contractors' complaints, "we're doing it as fast as we can, pulling staff from other duties to keep up," said Susan Scala-Demby, zoning manager for the Montgomery County department of permitting services.
Contractors have long complained about the permitting bureaucracy in the District. "D.C. is the pits," Mark IV's Scott said.
Unlike regulators in other jurisdictions, D.C. officials could not provide any statistics comparing permit activity with past years. But they said they are aware of concerns about delays.
The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs has said that it is opening a permitting line this month just for homeowners, separate from big builders or contractors. Some suburban jurisdictions already have similar procedures.
Nationally, remodeling expenditures have grown at a steady rate for the past decade, but nowhere near what seems to be going on in the Washington area, say officials at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.
