With building uptick, county again outsources permitting

Building in Las Vegas is picking up, prompting Clark County’s Building Department to resume outsourcing building permits. It’s a technique that the department started using in 1983 but hasn’t used since the recession hit.

“We’ve been doing it for a considerable amount of time as work started to pick up,” said Ron Lynn, Building Department director. “We continued into 2007, but we had no work and didn’t need outside agencies and had to lay off many of our own employees. We stopped sending work to outside agencies and now we’re picking back up and trying to be conservative.”

According to Lynn, the county only works with companies that have been approved.

“We go through a county establishing process where we outline the minimum specifications required, which also include county overlays such as insurance and what’s necessary for doing work with the county,” he said. “We then put in a request for proposal, and once people put in a proposal, County Purchasing does the first cut and then the next cut is based on technical qualifications.”

The four companies that were chosen by the county: Bureau Veritas, which specializes in testing, inspection and certification and boasts 1,330 offices in 140 countries; Interwest Consulting Group on West Russell Road in Las Vegas; Willdan Group Inc., a Henderson-based provider of professional technical and consulting services; and EsGil Corp., which provides specialized plan review services out of San Diego.

“We’ve reinstituted the program to speed up the process,” Lynn said. “All or portions of plan reviews can be sent to them on an as-needed basis.”

That’s good news for developers and landlords, said Scott Gragson, executive vice president for the Las Vegas Land Division of Colliers International, a global commercial and residential real estate company.

“I think it’s a good sign that they’re busy enough that they have to outsource, but they’re not busy enough to hire new people,” he said. “The approval process can be quick or lengthy, which does hinder tenants moving in.”

“We always want the process to be quicker because the quicker the process, the quicker we can hire contractors to build and get the tenants moved in to open for business,” he said. “The best alternative is to outsource since we don’t want the county to overstaff and then have to lay off people.”

However, Mark Deaville of Petra Construction on North Rancho Drive said he doesn’t understand why the county is outsourcing building permits. He said that whenever he visits the Building Department, he never sees employees working.

“They have a gigantic building and half of it isn’t even being used,” he said. “Most of the time, the people are just sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Why not hire more people and handle it there?”

According to Lynn, when you walk into the Building Department, you get a number and wait to speak with the appropriate area such as zoning.

Deaville, who has been in the construction business for nearly 40 years, said permits shouldn’t take more than six weeks to obtain, and he’s been waiting on building permits for a construction project for the past 10 months and for his own home since June.

“It’s overwhelmingly burdensome on a contractor to have to wait that long,” he said. “There are so many layers of government to go through to get the permits; it’s awful going there. I’d rather go to the dentist every week for a month.”

Each month, according to Lynn, the Clark County Building Department releases statistics about inspections, plan review and overall performance, which include goals for projects to be completed.

For phased projects, which include more complex projects such as casinos, the goal to complete a plan review is 42 days compared with 21 days for commercial projects and 14 days for residential.

Lynn said there are a lot of factors that come into play when drafting building plans such as land use, variances and public works issues.

“We cannot control how long the applicant holds on to a plan,” Lynn said. “If we write a letter and tell them that something is wrong with their plans, they could sit on it for 60 or 70 days because of other work or they’re busy.”

Deaville said he moved to Las Vegas from Southern California to get away from the difficult process of getting building permits.

“Now Southern California has followed me here and I’m looking to move because I don’t want to be a contractor anymore and go through this building permit process,” he said.

“If their jobs were based on how many projects go in and out, than maybe they would be more apt to push jobs through, but no one has a vested interest to make this move faster.”

Despite either side’s opinion, it’s clear that building projects are picking up in Southern Nevada.

According to Lynn, more than 200,000 buildings were inspected in 2013 compared with 151,000 building inspections in 2011.

Gragson said that recently he’s noticed an increase in building and land sales locally.

“During the downturn, we were leasing and now sales have picked up,” he said.

In the future, Gragson said, he believes there will be a push for industrial.

“I think it will be difficult to find land in the south part of the valley for industrial that’s ready to go,” he said. “We’ll also continue to see office vacancies lower, strategic office development and retail looks good.”

Although Gragson said the future of retail looks bright, he is concerned about retail projects on the Strip.

“There is an abundance of retail being developed on the Strip, and I think that will make it difficult for owners since there is too much direction shifting to online,” he said. “It’ll be based on the best operators and the best location.

“The strong will survive.”