Austin Mayor Vows to Improve City’s Site Plan Review

Austin’s site plan review process is a “mess,” Austin Mayor Kirk Watson says, and he’s eager to improve it.

Consulting firm McKinsey & Company recently took feedback from customers undergoing site plan review, plus 150 city staffers across 11 departments. Only 1 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with the process, the Austin Business Journal reported.

Austin’s site plan review — which analyzes all aspects of development, including location, landscaping, utilities and construction — has received criticism from developers, who say the process has hindered construction, elevated costs and worsened housing affordability.

“The city of Austin’s development review process is terribly inefficient and costly and has made our affordability crisis worse,” Watson told the outlet. “There are a lot of variables in the affordability equation, and many of them are outside of the city’s control. But this one is all us, and there is consensus that we need to get out of our own way and get this done to make Austin more affordable to everyone.”

City council will vote Thursday on whether to approve a $2.5 million, six-month contract with New York-based McKinsey in an effort to improve the site plan review. One proposed solution is to introduce an online tracker to monitor where applications are in the site review.

McKinsey’s study shed light on the complexities of the site plan approval process. Each application navigates through roughly 1,470 steps before receiving the green light, the outlet said.

A whopping 78 percent of applicants said the process exceeded a year: 49 percent waited 12 to 18 months, and 29 percent endured wait times surpassing 18 months. Furthermore, applicants frequently had to resubmit their materials multiple times, contributing to inefficiencies.

—Quinn Donoghue