Member Guest Post: BUILDING AFFORDABLE FAST - PART ONE

BY JIM WILLIAMS
Senior Project Manager, Withee Malcolm Architects, a BSB Design Studio

In California, the time typically allowed by many final funding sources to pull a building permit on a publicly funded affordable housing project is 180 days. That timeline starts on the day the funding is committed and concludes on the day the developer has a permit in hand (some final funding sources will accept a “permit ready” letter from the city). Missing this 180-day deadline means trouble for the project and everyone involved… reputation, loss of deposits, fees, penalties when competing for tax credits on future projects, and even a total loss of the dedicated funding. Needless to say, this 180-day deadline is important. If it’s missed, the project most likely will just not happen.

So how do you ensure this deadline can be met?

For simple projects or those in areas without much density, 180 days is often a perfectly adequate amount of time to develop a design, create construction documents, and pull a building permit.

Don’t get me wrong, it certainly isn’t easy, but it is enough time for a qualified team. However, denser urban areas make things a bit more complicated.

How do you take a project from schematic design to a building permit in 180 days when the plan check process often takes 365 days?

This is where a super-qualified and experienced team is needed.

More design development is often required for projects with tight site constraints (tick, tock, the clock is ticking). Project densities are usually higher in these areas which also leads to a more complex project (tick, tick, tick… more time is needed). And finally, dense urban areas often have overloaded, slow-moving building departments (did I hear an alarm go off??). For example, when someone asks me how long it takes to get a building permit in L.A., I feel like a safe and accurate number is typically one year from first plan check submittal to permit for a relatively complex multifamily podium product. It can be done in less, but one year is fairly common. This is where a super-qualified and experienced team is needed. How do you take a project from schematic design to a building permit in 180 days when the plan check process often takes 365 days?

Working Your System

One way is obvious: Start early. Have construction documents half-finished and half-way though plan check before you even submit the project for public funding. Sounds easy, right? Well, the trouble with this and a key reason it often doesn’t happen is the uncertainty of the financials. Since the project has not been submitted for funding, entire consultant teams could potentially be working on the project for six months without any guarantee that it will actually be funded. This requires significant cash flow and the willingness to take a risk. You can see why compressing the design development, construction document, and plan check process as much as possible is so valuable and important. So how is this done? Shortcuts? Not at my firm (though I’d guess some firms try). Doing less? Not likely. It usually requires more work (not less) to compress the total time frame. The only proven solution is to adjust the critical path items.

The only way to successfully and consistently beat the 180 day countdown is to thoroughly understand what needs to get done in exactly what order, then direct all available resources to the critical path. This looks much different for an urban infill, publicly funded affordable housing project than it does for a market rate project. Architects and engineers like to live by rules. We love our procedures, lists, and sequences, and they’re very important to help us track the myriad variables involved in every project. These rules are often the only things that keep a project from spiraling into chaos. So you can see why asking an architect to change the order of their processes might be similar to asking someone to walk into traffic with their eyes closed. It’s a scary proposition. But that’s exactly what needs to be done (not the walking into traffic part…. the changing the order of doing things part).

I’ll continue this discussion in my next article by sharing four simple examples of how reorganizing processes can help you conquer the impending doom of the 180-day timeline. As I said above, this timeline makes or breaks affordable housing projects, and implementing changes to the critical path can be your golden ticket to project success.

About the Author:

Jim Williams is an Associate and Senior Project Manager at Withee Malcolm Architects and Planners, a 40+ year old architecture and design firm in southern California. Jim specializes in affordable multifamily housing projects of a wide range and typology, bringing experience with developers, investors and municipalities throughout the region.