Douglas County plan targets faster commercial development reviews
The proposal includes coordinators, concurrent reviews and online tools, but no plan-specific budget, implementation calendar or full baseline for measuring results.
Douglas County has released a plan to coordinate commercial and industrial development reviews, proposing a project coordinator, cross-department Rapid Response Teams, milestone meetings, concurrent reviews and an online information hub. The Red Tape Reduction Action Plan also sets estimated county review targets, but does not include a plan-specific appropriation, fiscal-impact estimate or dated implementation schedule.
The plan’s six initiatives are process streamlining, customer experience, service excellence, partnerships, performance measurement and communications. It says the county has begun piloting Rapid Response Teams, milestone meetings and concurrent reviews.
A proposed Development Project Coordinator would serve as an applicant’s main point of contact, help guide projects through county review and escalate projects that exceed performance targets. The county’s task-force webpage identifies Eric Pavlinek as the contact for projects needing a Rapid Response Team.
The teams would include officials from Community Development, Engineering and Building, with fire prevention, utilities and public-health agencies added when needed. Milestone meetings would identify problems earlier, while concurrent reviews would let eligible agencies work at the same time instead of sequentially.
The proposal calls for a one-stop online hub with requirements, checklists, forms, fees, process maps, timelines, contacts and frequently asked questions. A longer-term “1 Door – 1 Application” system would add application-status tracking, payments, approvals and inspection coordination. The records do not establish that either system has fully launched.
Published estimates range from 10 business days for a commercial sign permit to 64 business days for new commercial construction. Other estimates are 30 business days for commercial site redevelopment, 21 business days for a tenant improvement with external modifications and 15 business days for one without external modifications.
The estimates cover county Building, Engineering and Planning review from a complete submittal to approval. They assume adequate infrastructure, no off-site improvements and specified correction cycles. An additional correction cycle could add 10 to 15 business days, the plan says, while project complexity or state and federal requirements could extend the process.
The plan reports that Building Division and Information Technology workflow changes have eliminated about five days from permitting through streamlined routing, fewer staff handoffs and the elimination of paper files. The county’s task-force webpage separately reports a 20% reduction in initial application review time, or about 10 business days. The records do not identify the permit types, cases, measurement periods or methodology behind either figure, and do not provide recent averages or medians for comparison.
The task force followed a December 2025 resolution calling for reduced regulatory burdens on commercial and industrial development. Its members met four times from April through August 2026, with process-mapping sessions from April through May. The plan says implementation is underway in some areas but provides no phase-by-phase deadlines or completion dates.
A Planning Commission agenda schedules an update from Community Development Director Kati Carter on Sept. 14. As of Sept. 2, that meeting had not occurred, and the agenda listed no formal vote or budget action.
The county plans to establish baseline data, create a performance dashboard and issue quarterly reports. Until those measures are published, the review-time figures remain targets and reported process improvements rather than a documented comparison of recent project performance.