A housing developer must budget up to two years for a building permit if they want to build in Denver, according to recent Denver Gazette reporting. And when it comes to construction, time is money.

A few mayoral candidates – who participated in a Denver Gazette/Colorado Politics sponsored debate Wednesday – think their plans to address the backlog will bring that wait time down significantly.

During the last major debate between mayoral hopefuls, Kelly Brough, Debbie Ortega, Robert Treta and Andy Rougeot presented their plans on the best way to address the issue that’s become a bit of a black eye for the city.

Treta, a builder, is all too familiar with the slow-moving process of Denver’s permitting department. He says the fix is “very simple.”

“You relegate the building department to a zoning-only review, everything else gets done through the engineer of record,” he said. “The city has put too much micromanagement into every single project It is just ridiculous.”

Though not a builder, Denver City Councilwoman Debbie Ortega has served Denver for more than two decades (though not consecutively) and knows the intricacies of city departments. She is term limited as an at-large councilwoman and represented north Denver and downtown after winning Sal Caprio’s council seat in 1987.

However, knowing the intricacies of city departments means she also knows their inefficiencies. She questioned whether the permitting department should be a part of the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, given how big DOTI has become since Mayor Michael Hancock created it in 2019.

“I want to revisit whether or not we have the permit office in the right location; it used to be part of the building department in public works,” she said. “I really believe it may need to be a standalone agency that works with all of the different folks who have to sign off on the permits.”

Ortega said she wanted to bring employees back into the office, a position Rougeot told the Denver Gazette he has as well. Ortega also proposed separating big projects and small projects from one another so small projects aren’t lost to mountains of paperwork.

Brough, the former president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, recalled the backlogs from a year ago, calling them “terrible.” She also remembers a massive influx that came in due to the city’s new affordable housing law changes in Denver – requiring multi-family developers to include a certain portion of affordable units or pay a fee. If she were one of the employees looking at a mountain of paperwork, Brough said she’d give up too. Her path to addressing it differs from Ortega’s, however.

“I’d bring in a contract team to help. Let’s catch up and get it behind us,” she said. “This is not everybody run faster or come into the office and just do more, this is we’re going to have to take action to catch everybody up.”

Brough said once the department is caught up, she would investigate metrics and accountability and look at creating one department to handle permits. Currently several departments, including forestry, fire, building code and others have to coordinate just to get a permit pushed through. Brough doesn’t think this can be “un-siloed” effectively and said several administrations had already tried.

Her suggestion mirrors Ortega’s in that she wants to create a single department but may require a change to the City Charter. Brough did not specify which part of the Charter.

“I’d say one team, one job and it’s servicing our customers,” she said.

Rougeot did not specifically address Denver’s building permit woes at the debate, instead saying Denver deserves a mayor “who is used to leading high performing organizations.”

He recalled his Army service in Afghanistan, protecting Kabul from suicide bomber attacks. He described it as a situation where failure was not a consideration. 

“We deserve a mayor who has that focus who is not a politician who is not a lobbyist who has experience getting things done to deliver for them.”