Official website of the
City of Vancouver, Washington

Building and Development Permits

Streamlined Permitting

The City of Vancouver is committed to promoting healthy economic development and providing jobs in our community. An example of this is the City’s new streamlined development review process. The result is a more efficient process that does not compromise our ability to ensure that development projects are consistent with codes and policies that affect the livability of this community.

The new process is a result of input and feedback we received from the Columbia River Economic Development Council and other members of the business community.

The primary initiatives regarding streamlining can be divided into two categories: Administrative Process and Code Changes:

Administrative process (no code change required):

• 90-day Complete Building Permit Process

This option will allow applicants to have a "pre-construction" meeting and obtain a building permit no more than 90 days from submitting an application. In this option, the applicant must submit complete and "final" plans for all phases of the work at the beginning of the process. This may be a preferred alternative when a site is really "ready to go" and a developer is willing to commit to final plans at the initial application stage. If a public hearing is involved, an additional 30 days or so will be required.

The timeframe noted above reflects time the City spends reviewing the project. The clock stops when an applicant is responding to “red-lines” or other issues. Also, projects with complicated environmental constraints requiring multiple state and federal agency review or other issues beyond the control of the City will have an extended timeframe.

Code Changes:

Several items are proposed as part of the code re-write process including:

• Reducing the time for notice and comment from 30 to 14 days.
  
• Eliminating the need for public notice and comment for some very small projects that currently require that level of review.

Streamlined Site Plan Review Application

Streamlined Subdivision Application