Update concerning the UDO Remapping case (Z-27-14) – Last night City Council continued the public hearing for this case. Comments from both hearings have been documented and the public hearing was closed. City Councilors are planning to conduct a workshop on July 27 to discuss a strategy for addressing the comments. We will keep you posted as additional information becomes available.
Last Friday, I and other City staff had the pleasure of touring one of Raleigh’s new high-rise apartment buildings, Skyhouse. The view from the rooftop is really beautiful. I could see North Hills, the Crabtree Valley Mall, and Dorton Arena. Closer by, I observed the construction of several other multi-family housing projects, including the Edison and Lincoln.
As we walked around the building, Paul Kallam, our Public Works Engineering Manager, and the team of project managers reminded us that the Skyhouse project was permitted via the Express Review process. And after chatting with Celia McCoy, one of our Express Scheduling Coordinators, I learned that this has been a busy year in Express. In addition to those already mentioned, several other multi-family housing projects were recently reviewed in Express including the L Building (which we also toured a few months ago), Post Parkside at Wade, Stanhope, Crabtree Creek, Links, Gramercy, North Shore Condos, Meadow Wood, Calvary Trace, Emerson Glen, Vue, Greenway Village, and Walden Wood.
I’ve blogged about this service in the past (search “express” on the DSinsider website). It is an expedited commercial plan review in which project managers, design professionals and trade plan reviewers are present and working together.
This optional, face-to-face service is for applicants seeking permits following the review, as opposed to Coordinated Team Review, or CTR, in which a face-to-face review is conducted with no permit issuance.
Since its inception, Express Review has been a very popular service. Over the past few years, we’ve added more time slots and expanded our offering of face-to-face review services to keep up with the growing demand. And now as the economy continues to improve and more development projects are planned, several more process improvements are in the works. This includes the addition of a third plan-review team and a full-time supervisor to oversee the Express program. DS staff are also working with the City's Information Technology department to implement a new online scheduling tool.
We’ll keep you posted on DSinsider as these and other process improvements are made. Thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!
