City Planning director warns permitting revenue, staffing and fee rules complicate FY26 budget

Commissioner Janae Prince, Commissioner of City Planning, told Atlanta City Council during a June budget review session that the Department of City Planning (DCP) is completing the city’s comprehensive development plan and preparing a rewrite of the zoning ordinance while adjusting its permitting operations and staffing for fiscal year 2026.

Prince said the department completed the comprehensive development plan and “we have reduced our multifamily permitting times from a hundred and 75 days to 58 days, and we’ve improved our single family permitting times down to 33 days.” She told council members the department has 4,150 affordable units permitted toward the mayor’s 20,000-unit goal and that community engagement around the CDP included about 7,000 unique participants.

The department is shifting how it finances permitting work. Prince said an earlier enterprise fund that once held permitting revenues was dissolved and the city has been drawing from a remaining committed fund balance each year. “This year, there’s 1,200,000.0 left in that account that will go towards OPAL, our new enterprise platform,” she said, referring to the city’s planned Oracle permitting and licensing platform. Prince warned that once those reserves are used for the OPAL rollout, the department will “rethink” permitting functions and how services are delivered.

Why this matters: Council members pressed for clarity…