Chair Riley asks if DCP can maintain design quality on accelerated track

The administration released a report on speed task force in May.

The first recommendation of the report was to reduce the time many zoning applications spend in pre-certification from two years to six months.

Highly qualified, well-designed development is essential to success in community support.

Is DCP still able to engage in its work to shape good urban design and quality development on such an accelerated track?

Absolutely.

So our work to speed up housing is about improving process.

It's not about supplementing good planning judgment, quality, or thoughtful review.

We have been working to stand up a new team that will be focused on those seeker-exempt applications.

And again, these are largely applications based on 10 years of analysis that show us less than 1% have an environmental impact, but they've really been sort of held in two years of review.

We're working to accelerate them to six months of pre-certification process, but they will still go through land use review.

That's where there's an opportunity for us to make sure that we're using sound planning and judgment to evaluate those projects.

And so the thoughtful planning work that is essential to the work that we do at DCP, that will continue even as we're working to improve process.