SB 447 — Land Disturbance Permits; Revisions to Issuance Process

Permitting  

This week, SB 447, legislation which governs the issuance of Land Disturbance Permits (LDPs) by Local Issuing Authorities (LIAs) advanced through the House Natural Resources Committee in a substantially revised format.  

This legislation intends to shorten the shot-clock applicable to local issuing authorities in their review and issuance of LDPs. The legislation now hinges on LIAs taking receipt of a ‘completed application’ for a permit, before review, or the shot clock may begin. LIAs are the determiners of what constitutes a completed application and must publish these standards in a public facing manner. Upon initial submittal, LIAs will have five business days to determine application ‘completeness’ before the official review may begin. When an application has been accepted, the LIAs will have three shot-clock windows, 45 days, 20 days, and then 14 days. During the initial 45-day review LIAs must cite deficiencies in the application and tie them to relevant federal, state, or local regulations, codes, or ordinances. Upon taking receipt of an amended application, local governments then have 20 days to review, with the same citation requirement in place. Upon a third, or any subsequent review thereafter, LIAs would only have 14 days to identify deficiencies, and could not cite previously unidentified issues.  

If an LIA utilizes a state agency, ex. DCA, DOT, GSWCC, to conduct a portion of permit application review, they must make applicants for permits aware of this, and any time spent by said agencies in the review of application materials shall ‘toll’ the time on the shot-clock. Additionally, if there are material additions between iterations of the application as it moves through review, or if the application is rejected for incompleteness, those both shall constitute a resetting of the shot clock. The bill also completely carves out any development designated as a Development of Regional Impact (DRI). 

The legislation also contains relevant provisions for building permits. The legislation amends the manner by which local governments interact with private professional providers in the issuances of building permits. Reintroduced into the legislation is the requirement of a public facing website for real time permit tracking. Local governments issuing more than 250 building permits annually, would be required to have a website providing real time status updates on building permits starting Jan 1, 2028.  

This legislation is now pending action in the House Rules Committee.