Oakland has one of the shortest entitlement and permitting timelines for residential development in the Bay Area, with the two processes adding up to less than a third of the time it takes to get a shovel in the ground in San Francisco.
It takes nearly 311 days on average-––165 days for entitlements and another 146 days for permitting––to get cleared to start a residential project in Oakland, according to recent data from the State of California’s Department of Housing and Community Development.
San Francisco had the longest timelines for both entitlements and permits in California. It takes an average of 450 days for entitlements and 525 for permits in San Francisco, adding up to 975 days.
San Jose is about midway between San Francisco and Oakland, with an average of 286 days for entitlements and 329 days for permitting, for a total of 615 days.
Many other cities in the Bay Area top 500 hundred days, on average, to issue entitlements and permits. Berkeley averages 316 days on permits alone.
Rates vary in other parts of California. Los Angeles averages 165 days for entitlements and 166 days for permitting, about 20 days longer than Oakland.
Oakland’s relative speed comes with exceptions–the averages can be misleading indicators when it comes to larger projects. Developers in the city have been lamenting how long it takes for projects to be completed for years .
Mark McClure, a partner in developer California Capital & Investment Group partner, said in 2018 that he was just seeing developments starting that were first looking to get entitled when he was on the Oakland Planning Commission between 2002 and 2006. McClure noted the longer timelines often come with higher costs.
“Let’s not sugarcoat that the process sucks,” he said at the time. “We reach the right outcomes, but it comes at too high of a cost.”
While Oakland has above-average efficiency with approving permits and entitlements, it’s about in the middle of the plack when it comes to building, another aspect of the development process tracked by the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development. Oaklands’s residential projects go from permitted to constructed in an average of 495 days, about on part with San Francisco ‘s average of 471 days.
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SF housing bottleneck: resi entitlements, permits take longest in state
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