Commerce awards $3 million to boost housing production pipeline
Grants will help accelerate the approval of local residential building permits
OLYMPIA, Wash. – The Department of Commerce today announced $3 million for 16 cities and four counties across Washington to streamline local building permit review processes. The funding will help create digital permitting processes and consolidate permit reviews, reducing the time needed to process and approve residential building permits, moves that strengthens the state’s pipeline of new housing production.
“It will take solutions from all angles to address the projected need for more than a million new housing units in communities across Washington over the next 20 years,” said Commerce Director Mike Fong. “These grants will help modernize and streamline the way residential building permits are processed, reducing delays, cutting down on paperwork and helping us meet that urgent need for new housing.”
These investments are part of the 2023 Legislature’s year of housing, which included middle housing and updates to the Local Project Review Act, the statewide framework for local government land use planning review and development permitting. Two new Commerce grant programs resulted from these updates: consolidated permit review and paper to digital.
Consolidated Permit Review Grants support local governments as they streamline building permit review and remove barriers to housing development. Recipients commit to issuing final decisions on residential permit applications within 45 business days or 90 calendar days. Seven communities received permit review grants.
- City of Airway Heights: $187,500
- City of College Place: $170,500
- City of Mukilteo: $100,000
- City of Wapato: $89,219
- Town of Yarrow Point: $187,500
- Pierce County: $187,500
- Skagit County: $187,500
Paper to Digital Grants supports cities and counties in transitioning from paper filing to digital systems for processing permit applications. This change makes it faster and easier to address housing shortages. Thirteen communities received Paper to Digital grants.
- City of Anacortes: $197,335
- City of Arlington: $183,000
- City of Buckley: $80,000
- City of Carnation: $100,000
- City of La Center: $194,500
- City of Lakewood: $240,000
- City of Lynden: $140,000
- City of Port Townsend: $60,000
- City of Snoqualmie: $117,811
- City of Spokane: $375,000
- City of University Place: $30,000
- Jefferson County: $94,000
- Lewis County: $78,635
“We would like to express our appreciation for the grant award we recently received,” said Tami Palmquist, City of Spokane Development Services Center Director. “It arrived at a key moment as we just began the implementation of our new permitting and licensing system last month. We are thrilled to report that we were able to align the grant deliverables with the objectives already established in our project scope. This synergy not only enhances our implementation process but also reinforces our commitment to meeting the goals of both the grant and our project. We feel incredibly fortunate to have these two initiatives align so well, and we are eager to move forward with this important work
The awards announced today expend the available funding for these programs. Additional grants may become available if new funds are appropriated by the Washington State Legislature. For more information, visit the Local Project Review webpage.
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