"This is a very big deal, because, right now, if you are someone who is looking for an affordable housing unit somewhere in the city, if you are an entrepreneur looking to open a small business, this, right now, is going to make that work faster, easier and cheaper," Johnston said during a press conference on Monday, April 14. "For us, that's sending a clear message that Denver is open for business. ...We hear anecdotally all the time there's nothing that drives up the cost of a project more than taking years for it to get done."
Three main staff members will lead most of the work done by the DPO, including Jill Jennings Golich, the agency's director. The city will also rely on coordination with 280 employees from seven departments and the head of each department. The seven city departments involved in the new agency are Community Planning and Development; Denver Fire, Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI); Parks and Recreation; Economic Development and Opportunity; Excise and Licenses; and Housing Stability.
"In Denver, we want to be a top-tier city to do business with," Jennings Golich said at the press conference. "All of this is intended to bring us together better as a city to collaborate on the successful completion of all projects."
The DPO will also work with residential permits, but projects for single-family homes and duplexes will have "a different permitting pipeline," and, therefore, won't be fast-tracked, Johnston said.
The creation of the DPO didn't cost the city anything and doesn't have a budget right now because the city plans on "utilizing our current employees" who will be paid by their primary agency, not the DPO, Johnston said. "It doesn't require new resources, just structuring them differently," he added.
Johnston promised that If the DPO doesn't complete its review of a permit in 180 days, the agency will send the application to an executive committee made up of the heads of the seven involved departments "who will unstick whatever is stuck and get that project moving out the door," Johnston said.
"Right now you might have to sequentially go to [Community] Planning and Development and then to DOTI and then to Fire," Johnston explained. "The ability to have all those in one location, working collaboratively and often with the ability to review those permits concurrently, rather than consecutively, makes it move much faster."
If applicants don't get a decision from the DPO or executive committee within a seven-month period, "we will refund up to $10,000 of your permitting fee," Johnston said. "We're going to make a big public commitment to the time frame, and we're going to make a commitment to accountability for us and for the city to deliver."
Johnston also described a more hands-on approach from DPO, which will offer in-person service from the second floor of the Webb Municipal Building, 201 West Colfax Avenue, every weekday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Each permit application will be handled by a "project champion" who will be "one person at the city who will be your guide through the entire process," Johnston said.
"If you're one month in or three months in or four months in, and you need to talk to a different department, a different division, that is the individual who will help," Johnston said. "This is one city employee that you can reach out to to get all of those questions answered."
Johnston created the department by signing an executive order. Since Johnston took office in July 2023, he has created new offices and programs like the Office of Neighborhood Safety and the now-disbanded Newcomer Program. However, this was Johnston's first executive order, the mayor said, adding that it was the best way to create the agency urgently and with hundreds of city employees involved.
"It shows the urgency and the priority of this issue for this city," Johnston said. "It does create a couple of new structures that are needed to help solve this problem...and it creates a structure by which all these departments will collaborate to resolve conflict. Because it has this much impact on this many employees and departments, we thought it was important to have direct executive action."
The other departments and programs established under Johnston were created within a single agency, like the Office of Equity, which created the Neighborhood Safety Office, or the Department of Human Services, which housed the Newcomer Program.
Last year, one of Johnston's citywide goals was to streamline the city permitting process, and the mayor announced in January that it had met that goal by cutting the permit time for residential property projects by 30 percent and for commercial projects by 17 percent. Johnston said that this year the city reduced the amount of time it takes for restaurants to get their permit decision from righteen months to "a number of weeks" by launching an express permitting process just for restaurateurs.
The DPO was designed with feedback on Denver's permitting process collected from private businesses, nonprofits and community members for almost a year, according to Johnston.
The DPO will start operating next month, according to the City of Denver, but the DPO website web page launched during Johnston's press conference.
