Development in the City of Austin is best facilitated by an efficient review process. Completing reviews in a timely manner allows for better planning of the overall process and supports a growing economic base for the community. This measure reports the quantity of individual reviews of submitted permit applications that were completed on or before the published deadline, each fiscal year (FY) as recorded in the City’s permitting database.  

For FY 2021, 92% of tracked reviews of residential permit applications were completed within the published review times. While the City does not have a goal for this measure, the Development Services Department, which contributes the majority of the tracked reviews to this metric, has established a goal of completing 90% of review on-time.

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As the demand for new residential housing stock and remodels/renovations continues, the number of residential applications continues to grow. Since FY 2016 the percentage of plan reviews completed on-time has continued an overall upward trend with a slight dip in FY2021. Ongoing recruitment of key staff positions and the implementation of technological improvements enabled staff to meet demands and deliver on-time reviews.

Note: to see the underlying data for this chart, please click the vertical dots menu and select "View Source Data."

As additional partner departments begin to track reviews in the City’s permitting database, and efforts to establish a more efficient coordination of the process are implemented, both the number and percentage of commercial and mixed-use plan reviews completed on-time should continue to rise.

The development process in the City of Austin is a complex, inter-departmental, multi-disciplinary function. Most of those individual review disciplines and the development review activity of their respective City departments are tracked in AMANDA, the City of Austin's permitting database. For those activities that are tracked in AMANDA, the graphics below display a breakdown of the on-time performance percentage by department as well as the total number of reviews completed by department. Naturally, the Development Services Department contributes the greatest number of individual reviews in the development process in any given year. Some activities may not be tracked in AMANDA. 

There are many changes in the next few years that could have an impact on the City of Austin’s development processes and influence this metric. City of Austin leaders have initiated several inter-departmental realignment efforts, building a more efficient organizational structure to achieve the stated goals of Strategic Direction 2023 in service to our community. This will foster more seamless collaboration between work groups that reside in discrete departments, driving a more efficient development process overall. The Permitting and Development Center has opened as a consolidated location to house all development review activities across the multiple departments.  Upgrades to the City’s permitting database and the public-facing Austin Build + Connect Portal, investment in paperless processes, and other technological enhancements will further allow for process improvements that will both drive efficiency and enable an increasing volume of application submittals. In short, the City of Austin anticipates continued gains in the efficiency of the Development Review process which will decrease the overall cost of time for development.

Date page was last updated:  March 2023