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 on whether current permitting revenues and the proposed DCP budget comply with recent state limits on fee use. The issue affects how much of permit revenue can be applied to DCP operations and whether vacant positions should be funded or held for future project surges.

Permitting revenues and House Bill 461

Council members asked for specifics on permit-fee revenue and compliance with House Bill 461, the state law that restricts use of regulatory fees. In response, Prince and analysts estimated recent permitting revenue near $35 million–$38 million in the most recent year, with DCP projecting roughly $33 million–$35 million for the coming year. Prince and the city’s legal and finance representatives said they are working to ensure compliance.

Amber A. Robinson, City of Atlanta Department of Law, told the council the statute “essentially codifies case law surrounding what you can use fees, regulatory fees to fund” and that the city “is in compliance” with those requirements as they apply to activities tied to permitting, enforcement and administrative review.

Staffing, contracting and operations

Prince said DCP has 95 vacant positions as of February (mostly in the Office of Buildings for inspectors) and that the department’s vacancy rate has fallen from 35% to 27% since she took office. She told council members the department intends to reduce reliance on a supplemental staffing contract with Nova Engineering that currently supplies residential inspectors; Prince said the Nova contract has been about $4,500,000 and that bringing inspectors in-house should save money over time.

Council members expressed concern that the proposed FY26 personnel and contracted-services lines may not match the department’s workload, noting DCP’s role in major initiatives including zoning rewrite (Zoning 2), short-term rental enforcement and World Cup public‑realm coordination. Council member Juan (first name used in the hearing) said he was “worried” the request “is woefully under resourcing you for the next year” given DCP’s expanding workload. Prince and staff said they are balancing year‑to‑year variations in workload — large pushes for the CDP and zoning rewrite followed by quieter years — and are trying to retain flexibility without abolishing positions that may be needed when major projects resume.

Upcoming projects and small-area planning

Prince said DCP will test the new zoning ordinance over the summer and expects to bring the ordinance forward for adoption early next year, with small-area plans to follow. She noted an Atlanta Regional Commission LCI grant will support planning around the Ashby MARTA station and that the department received a $5 million grant for an urban forest master plan in coordination with the parks department. DCP is also coordinating World Cup public-realm work and launching neighborhood-level dives as the city is approximately 136 square miles and the CDP is intentionally high level.

Discussion vs. decision

Council discussion focused on whether the FY26 proposed budget captures costs tied to the OPAL rollout, the distribution of permitting-related costs across multiple departments (DCP, Watershed, ATL DOT, Atlanta Information Management and others), and how House Bill 461 requirements will affect future budgeting. Commissioner Prince said the department will bring a fee ordinance to City Council to restructure permits for projects under $75,000 to comply with House Bill 461 after completion of a fee study.

What’s next

Prince said the zoning rewrite will be tested in public sessions beginning next month in the Arborist Conference Room through the end of the year, with a formal adoption package presented early next year. Council members asked the Department of Law and Finance to provide a written legal and budgetary opinion on House Bill 461 compliance and for DCP to provide more detailed staffing plans aligning in-house hires with reductions in contracted services.

Closing note

During the hearing several council members urged continued monitoring of permitting timelines and review quality as workloads rise; Prince and staff said they will return with more detailed fiscal and staffing analyses as they finalize the fee study and OPAL implementation schedule.