Contractors tell Lyon County permit backlog is hurting small builders; commissioners discuss staffing, software and third-party reviews

At a March 16 workshop, Lyon County staff briefed the Board of County Commissioners on the county’s building-permit application, plan review and inspection process and discussed options to reduce review times after a recent code update increased workload.

Community Development Director Gavin Henderson summarized the permit lifecycle — application intake, plan review with partner agencies (roads, utilities, fire), inspections and final occupancy — and identified common causes of delays: incomplete applications, missing supporting engineering or site studies, interagency coordination and third-party approvals such as fire-district review or FEMA-related requirements. He said the oldest permit in the queue dated Feb. 20 and staff had largely reduced the backlog, but contractors at the meeting said wait times remained a business problem.

Contractors: "It's a hard place to do business right now" Multiple contractors told the board they had experienced 8–10 week review waits that stall construction and increase costs. Contractor Dustin Merton said he hasn’t had a new job since January and described software gate issues that allow minimally completed submissions to proceed into the queue only to return long-delayed correction letters. "If I just hit the minimums ... I turn them in. Now I wait 10 weeks to get a correction letter," Merton said.

Options discussed - Third-party reviewers: staff said third-party plan reviewers are an available option for large or complex projects; typical vendor models charge roughly 65% of the building-plan fee, but vendors indicated they could accept a per-project cap (staff said caps in the $100k–$200k range have been discussed). - MOUs with fire districts: staff proposed a memorandum of understanding to allow concurrent fire and county reviews to reduce serial delays; Central Lyon and a local fire district contact have engaged in preliminary talks. - Software upgrades and AI tools: staff said an enterprise permitting solution with AI-assisted plan checks could identify missing documents at intake and reduce repeated cycles; staff estimated a full software replacement at approximately $200,000 plus setup fees of $60,000–$90,000 and annual licensing costs. - Staffing and short-term fixes: commissioners and contractors urged hiring or overtime to maintain capacity and prevent single-person dependencies; staff said the building department is currently "fragile" and that some short-term scheduling changes (dedicated days for certain communities) are being used while longer-term solutions are considered.

What the board asked staff to do Commissioners thanked contractors for input and asked staff to return with specific, measurable options (cost, expected timeline improvement, recommended use cases for third‑party review versus in‑house work) to inform budget decisions. Staff said they would pursue a third-party contract for immediate relief if needed, continue evaluating software replacements and provide recommendations tied to budget priorities.

Next step Staff will return to the board with concrete recommendations for software, staffing and contracting options and with proposals to streamline over‑the‑counter permitting for small projects; no new contracts or budget approvals were adopted at the workshop.