Across North America, cities are under pressure to get more housing built, and to get it built faster. Permitting sits right in the middle of that effort, since every new home needs a permit before construction can start. So it's no surprise that one question keeps coming up at council meetings: is permitting getting faster?
It's a fair question, and a hard one to answer well. Many departments answer with what their reporting already produces: permit volume, permits issued to date, maybe an average turnaround. Those numbers describe the workload. They don't explain it.
Average review time is often the main focus, and it's a reasonable place to start. The trouble is that it's the end result of several smaller things: how complete an application is when it comes in, how many rounds of corrections it goes through, how long it waits in the queue between rounds, and how long the applicant takes to respond. When the average improves, it can't tell you which of those changed. When it gets worse, it can't tell you where to look.
Start with the number you already report. The rest of this only makes sense once you see where it fits.
1. Median review cycle time. The number of calendar days from a complete application to a decision, counting only the days the file was on the city's clock.
Two choices in that definition matter.
Keep reporting whatever your state or council requires. In Washington, for example, jurisdictions covered by SB 5290 report average processing times by permit category, in calendar days. Sammamish's 2025 report lists average days under review separately from average days with corrections requested. That split is the same idea as counting only the city's time. Track the median alongside whatever you're required to report, and document which version you're using before anyone asks.
If your permitting system won't report a median, you can work one out by hand:
If your system records when a file goes on hold waiting for the applicant, subtract those days. If it doesn't, start with total days and note that in your definition. It takes an afternoon, and it gives you a baseline that holds steady even if a report setting changes.
Cycle time is the number council asks about, and the one you have the least direct control over. It's the result. The four metrics below drive it, and they're where the day-to-day work happens.
1. First-pass approval rate.
The share of applications approved on the first review, with no corrections sent back.
It doesn't always show up in standard reports, but it's one of the earliest signals you have. Every round of corrections adds a full loop:
Raise the share of applications that get through on the first review, and cycle time comes down without anyone working faster.
2. Corrections per application.
The average number of correction items issued on each application.
This is the companion to first-pass approval rate, and it's more useful for figuring out what's going wrong. First-pass approval tells you how often plans come back. Corrections per application tells you how much comes back each time. Sort corrections by type, and you can see whether the issue is incomplete submissions or the code being applied differently from one review to the next.
In Honolulu, corrections per application fell from 23.5 to 7.7 after the city introduced AI Pre-check, a 67% reduction. Reporting the before and after numbers, not just the percentage, is a good habit. It shows exactly what was counted, and anyone can check the math. It's also a corrections figure, not a review-time figure, and the two are worth keeping apart when you report your own.
The harder conversation is about consistency. If different reviewers send back noticeably different corrections on similar residential plans, the applicant's experience depends on who happened to pick up the file. Contractors notice this quickly. It's a standards issue, not a question of anyone doing their job badly. Software alone won't fix it. But comparing correction patterns across reviews makes it visible, and that gives your team something specific to work on.
3. Staff hours per permit.
Total review hours divided by permits issued.
This is the metric that makes sense in a budget meeting. A permit manager talking about turnaround times and a city manager thinking about headcount are often having two different conversations, and staff hours per permit connects them. Syracuse saved more than 260 staff hours a month, a figure that goes straight into a budget discussion.
Many departments don't log review time file by file, so start with an estimate: total reviewer hours for the month divided by permits issued that month. It won't capture time spent on applications that were withdrawn or are still in review, so treat it as a trend line, not an exact cost.
Read it next to cycle time. If hours per permit are falling but cycle time is going up, reviewers are working efficiently but files are waiting longer between steps. That usually points to a staffing or workload problem, not an efficiency one.
4. Applicant contacts to a decision.
How many times an applicant has to call, email, or visit before they get a decision.
This is the metric applicants feel most directly, and often the one elected officials hear about first. Long waits generate calls. So does coming back to the counter more than once and getting a different answer each time.
Santa Clarita cut the length of permit counter visits by 70%, which shows how much a better counter experience matters to applicants. That figure measures how long visits take, though, not how many it took. So it's a companion to this metric, not a substitute for it.
This is the hardest of the five to track and the easiest to estimate. For one month, have counter and front-desk staff tally repeat calls, emails, and visits on the same file. It won't be precise. It will likely show whether a small number of application types are driving most of the contact.
These tend to be the numbers that show up in reports. Each is useful for something, but none of them tells you whether permitting is getting faster.
Permit volume. Volume tells you how much demand is coming in, not how well you're handling it. Volume going up while cycle time holds steady is good news, but volume alone can't show you that. Use it as context for the other five.
Permits issued year to date. This one is useful for tracking workload and fee revenue, and for comparing against last year. But a running total only goes up, so on its own it can't tell you whether things are getting better or worse.
Average days to first response. This is worth tracking, and in some states early review steps are tied to legal deadlines. In Washington, cities covered by SB 5290 have 28 days to tell an applicant in writing whether their application is complete; if they don't respond, the application is deemed complete by default. The catch is that a fast first response doesn't guarantee a fast outcome. A quick response that sends plans back for corrections can still leave the applicant waiting longer overall, so read it alongside first-pass approval rate.
What is a good permit review time? There isn't a universal target. Permit types vary enormously, and so do local codes and review requirements. A two-week turnaround on a residential alteration and a two-week turnaround on a new commercial building aren't comparable. The most useful benchmark is your own median, broken out by permit type, moving in the right direction.
Athens-Clarke County has maintained a two-day permit turnaround as demand has grown. Albany cut planning review times by 50%. Both are real results, and they measure different things: one is a permit turnaround, the other is planning review. That distinction is worth holding onto whenever you compare two numbers, including your own from one year to the next.
When you publish your own results, say what was measured, over what period, and which permit types it covers. That's what lets council, applicants, and your own team trust the trend. It's also a fair standard to hold vendors to.
Faster permitting isn't the end goal on its own. It's one of the steps between an approved project and a project that's actually being built, and it's the step the building department controls.
Every round of corrections you avoid is one less wait for the applicant. A rising first-pass approval rate means more projects get their permit sooner, and the permit is what lets construction begin. Financing, contractor schedules, and utility connections all play a role too, but the permit is the part the department owns. If you want a signal for that handoff, the first inspection on a permit is the closest thing most building departments already track to a construction start.
In cities where housing is a council priority, that connection is one of the most useful things a building department can show elected officials. It's far more persuasive than volume.
This is also why the five work as a set:
It changes what you're able to say, too. A department reporting volume is describing its workload. A department reporting first-pass approval rate and cycle time together is showing how it helps projects move forward. That's something council already cares about, backed by numbers the department can stand behind.
You don't need all five in place to get started. Two will tell you a lot.
Pick first-pass approval rate and corrections per application. Both can be counted by hand from a month of files if your system won't report them. Both come early enough in the process that you can act on what they show. Together, they'll explain more about your cycle time than the average alone.
Document your definition, including what you're leaving out, before you report the first number. Six months from now, when someone asks whether the improvement is real or whether the counting changed, that definition is your answer.
It's also the reporting gap we hear about most from the departments we work with at Clariti. If you're evaluating permitting software, the AI Plan Review Buyer's Guide covers what to ask before you buy. That way you don't find out afterward that the number you need isn't one the system can produce.
What metrics should a building department track? Median review cycle time, first-pass approval rate, corrections per application, staff hours per permit, and applicant contacts to a decision. Tracking the four inputs alongside cycle time shows you why cycle time is moving, not just that it moved.