How Do You Get a Building Permit in The City of Dallas? When Everyone’s Boss is Angry

By Jon Hubach
Special Contributor

As we saw in 2020 as the world came to terms with what COVID-19 means to development, approval timelines were better suited to be written in pencil.  No city seemed quite so unprepared for this than Dallas. 

As has been the issue for many cities, city staffs are working from home.  In Dallas, the staff is currently capped at around 25 percent.  This means most departments have just a handful of employees at city offices (some are around three to four employees at the most). 

But unlike most companies, city staff are not given laptops or tablets to continue to work from home (usually only managers and department leadership are provided work tech).  Instead, they rely on e-mails and doing work on their personal equipment with weekly visits to City Hall.  

The issue is more than having the tech to do the job.  A lot of this was due to short staffing, unprepared employees, and chaos.  Since the city used a low-bid system, you get what pay for – buggy software.  So, what to do?  Here are some tips I recommend.

Never Assume 

Yes, the website says all permits are reviewed within a specific day.  Those guidelines have naturally been extended.  But don’t assume these new review timeframes are golden. Instead, think of them as a goal that no one is anywhere near addressing. No one is following up. No one is pro-active.  Assume your application is stuck in a queue and you need to nudge. A lot.

Be Persistent

So, you get a confirmation.  Sit back and wait, right?  Hardly.  You have to be your own advocate. Contact staff at least once a week.  If you think you are being a pest, that’s OK.  No one is going to be as involved as you are.  Time is money and if you wait on the city, well, that is money lost when that time could be spent getting someone’s attention.  It’s as close to using a megaphone as possible.

Everyone Has Someone They Answer To

In some cases, you get that one staff member who just will not follow up.  They hate the system, refuse to learn something new, they’re not a people person or just a plain old grump. 

As a former city employee, I ran into these folks too.  But they are not the end-all only contact. City staff has a hierarchy for a reason.  Everyone has culpability.  That means if the staff contact for your project will not answer, contact their boss.  And do as I said above — be persistent, be a pest, and be an annoyance.  No one gets results by using kid’s gloves.  

Call Your Councilmember

Sometimes it happens — you call, you email, and you write letters, but no one responds.  You raise your hands and quit, right?  Oh, it’s quite the opposite.  Go up the chain. Contact directors, deputy city managers, and the city manager.  Even go all in and contact your councilmember. 

It’s funny how quickly things get done when everyone’s boss gets angry.  Councilmembers work for you — your vote is basically hiring them.  So, tell them the system isn’t working, complain about staff that won’t answer, show them your frustration. The secret to city management is no one does anything proactively.  If we are not aware of the problem, we aren’t going out to fix things.  We need to be told it is broken before we fix it. 

The same goes here and yes, we can say enough with Dallas and go elsewhere.  It’s happening for sure. 

But Dallas is better when we work together.