Aspen staff outline permit and land-use reforms to speed reviews and reduce rework

City staff presented a multi-part update Dec. 15 on development-review reforms intended to shorten permit timelines and reduce rework, telling the Aspen City Council the department has made measurable progress while major projects still create bottlenecks.

“For the record, Ben Anderson, community development director,” Anderson told the council as he framed the presentation outlining recent reforms, data and next steps. He said staff have worked with Baseline Engineering on an 18-month review and are pursuing incremental improvements rather than wholesale reorganization "at this point."

Sydney Fallon of Development Services presented permit-volume and inspection metrics and highlighted persistent change orders as a recurring cause of rereview. "We keep permits moving through the system while also trying to reform it at the same time," Fallon said, and noted roughly 5,000 building, mechanical, electrical and plumbing inspections were performed this year. She also described the affidavit program — lower-risk permits signed by applicants and inspected in the field — and said expedited permits in the core (EPIC) have had the third review round eliminated in many cases.

Ben Anderson and Dan Foll (planning) described outcomes from a Baseline Engineering analysis that identified about 130 potential improvements. Staff emphasized three broad buckets: code or policy amendments (for example, streamlining historic-preservation reviews for noncontributing properties), process and customer-service standardization (FAQs, planner-of-the-day, sample applications), and staffing/training and records improvements. Anderson said some major permits can still take up to roughly 50 weeks to process; staff said reducing review rounds and targeted administrative changes could cut substantial time from those outliers.

Councilors asked practical questions about FAQs, a single point-of-contact for major projects, and whether the city should pursue code changes or pursue an Aspen Area Community Plan update with Pitkin County to address growth and congestion policy. Council Chair Rachel and other members urged staff to flag when a recommended change would require additional hires or a structural reorganization.

Staff also discussed records and public-access issues. Dan Foll said records are largely digitized since 2019 but that integration between Salesforce, Laserfiche and markup tools is imperfect and complicates Colorado Open Records Act responses; staff are working to improve searchability and public access.

No formal decisions were made. Staff asked council for guidance on reporting cadence; several councilors favored quarterly performance reporting and more public-facing visualizations (e.g., maps of open permits). Anderson said staff plan to return with options for periodic reporting and a near-term code-item (fee-waiver/deferral) for Q1 2026.