Bill labeled 5729 would force jurisdictions to ‘deem’ many permit applications complete; SBCC members warn of reduced plan review

SBCC Legislative Committee members spent the bulk of their March 6 meeting raising concerns about legislation identified in the transcript as “5729,” a bill that would change permit completeness and approval rules.

The bill’s main change, as explained by Micah, a staff member, is that when an application includes “a set of plans, set of computations, or specifications prepared or stamped by a professional engineer,” the application would be “automatically required to deem that that application is complete.” Micah said the language would remove a jurisdiction’s ability to require other documents and could create situations where “you’re gonna deem them as being there just based off this legislation.”

Committee members said that deeming an…