Puyallup staff report permit workload, customer survey results; council adopts SB 5290 implementation resolution

The Puyallup Development and Permitting Services (DPS) department briefed the City Council on Jan. 7 about 2024 permit activity, a new customer experience (Qualtrics) touchpoint survey and steps to implement Senate Bill 5290 (state law that updated local permit review timelines). The council voted to adopt a resolution establishing three initial measures intended to improve timeliness and predictability in local project review.

Department overview and metrics: Meredith Neal, director of development and permitting services, said DPS processed 2,130 permits in 2024 across 62 permit types, with a total project valuation of about $342,000,000. Permit review fees collected were roughly $2.8 million and impact fees/system development charges totaled about $3.67 million. Neal said staffing and process changes will focus on customer experience and operational efficiency.

Housing pipeline: Neal reported 181 housing units permitted in 2024 (ranging from single‑family to large apartment projects) and roughly 700 units in the pipeline: about 365 actively in permitting and about 342 at earlier preliminary stages. She said approximately 88% of housing unit permits in 2024 were for multifamily rental apartments, about 6% were single‑family, 3% duplexes and 3% accessory dwelling units.

Customer feedback and touchpoint surveys: Tilika Makar, the department's performance management analyst, explained DPS switched to a touchpoint approach where short surveys are sent after key interactions (application, issuance, inspections) rather than a single end‑of‑process survey. Over 2023'2024 DPS received about 200 survey responses. Makar said the touchpoint approach yields more actionable qualitative feedback and allows staff to follow up with named respondents when problems arise. She summarized key metrics: building customers reported higher satisfaction (combined "extremely" and "somewhat" satisfied about 81%); planning customers reported lower overall satisfaction (about 61% combined). Net promoter scores (NPS) were roughly +29 for building and +30 for planning. Makar provided examples where staff followed up directly with respondents to fix portal issues, erroneous permit guidance and checklist availability.

SB 5290 and proposed resolution: Katie Baker, planning manager, described SB 5290'driven changes to permit timelines (state law now uses a tiered set of deadlines instead of the older 120‑day rule) and new annual reporting requirements. The resolution before council proposed three immediate measures to help meet the law and improve local review: (1) add on‑call permitting assistance in each DPS division (planning, building and engineering); (2) amend code so pre‑application meetings are encouraged but not required for permit submission; and (3) formalize a requirement that when an application requires multiple rounds of review, staff schedule a meeting after the second review so outstanding corrections are discussed and, following a subsequent resubmittal, the city must approve or deny the permit within the prescribed timeline. Neal and Baker said the meeting requirement aims to reduce back‑and‑forth cycles on complex applications.

Council action and follow up: Council moved and approved the resolution by voice vote. Members asked staff to return with code amendments and an implementation plan, including how the city will track timelines for reporting to the Department of Commerce. Neal said staff will present a departmental strategic plan, code amendments tied to the comprehensive plan, and a proposed fee schedule and expedited permitting options later in 2025.

Quote: "The way a customer experience touchpoint survey differs from a traditional customer satisfaction survey is that unlike a satisfaction survey where you get 1 big survey for your entire experience, the customer receives very short surveys after every touch point that they have with DPS," Tilika Makar said.

What the council approved: The resolution was approved to implement the three measures described above and to direct staff to prepare code amendments and tracking/reporting procedures to meet SB 5290 requirements.