When it stops moving
Stalled project recovery
Most of the projects we take over are not stuck because someone made a dramatic mistake. They are stuck because an application is sitting in a queue nobody is working, or because two agencies are each waiting on the other, or because a correction notice arrived six weeks ago and nobody translated it into a task.
- First step
- Full file audit
- Usual finding
- Waiting on the wrong thing
- What we handle
- Violations, corrections, expirations
- Goal
- Opening date you can plan around
Our work has been covered by
- SF Chronicle
- Mission Local
- Hoodline
- SFist
- Tablehopper
- SF Business Times
A stalled project burns rent every day it stalls. The first thing we do is find out what the file actually says, because the answer is almost never the answer the project team has been giving.
The audit
We pull the record. Every permit application and its current status, every routing station it has cleared and the one it is sitting at, every correction notice and inspection result, every notice of violation, and every approval that has an expiration date running against it.
Then we tell you what is true. Sometimes the news is that four months were lost to a missing signature. Sometimes it is that the project needs an approval nobody ever applied for. Either way you get a written status you can act on instead of a verbal maybe.
Common ways San Francisco projects stall
The patterns repeat, which is the one encouraging thing about this work.
- Circular routing
- Planning waiting on Building, Building waiting on Planning, and no one closing the loop.
- Unanswered corrections
- A correction notice that was never turned into a plan revision, with the clock running the whole time.
- Expired approvals
- An entitlement or permit that lapsed while the project waited on a different agency.
- Scope drift
- Work built differently than permitted, discovered at inspection, requiring revision and sometimes a hearing.
- Notices of violation
- An enforcement file that has to be resolved before anything else will move.
- Missing parallel approval
- A Health, Fire or Entertainment approval nobody scheduled, holding the certificate of occupancy.
- Failed sound or final inspection
- A result that needs physical remediation, not another filing.
Working the file
After the audit we sequence the recovery: what must be resolved first because everything else depends on it, what can run in parallel, and what has a deadline that cannot slip.
Then we run point. We talk to the planners, inspectors and station staff, we get plan revisions filed correctly, and we translate between agencies that do not share systems. Where a hearing is required we prepare for it properly, including the neighborhood work that should have happened the first time.
What we will tell you honestly
Sometimes the recovery plan is expensive and slow, and sometimes the right advice is to change the concept to one the space can actually get approved for. We say that out loud when it is true.
We will not tell you a file can be accelerated when it cannot. No consultant controls an agency calendar, and anyone who implies otherwise is managing your expectations rather than your project.
Related work
- See our our permitting overview for how these approvals are supposed to sequence.
- See our conditional use authorization when a missing entitlement is the blocker.
- See our Place of Entertainment permit for venues stuck on sound or entertainment approvals.
Questions
Project Recovery questions we get
Can you take over a project that another consultant started?
Yes, and it is a large part of what we do. We start with the audit regardless of who filed what, because we need the record rather than the narrative. We will also tell you straightforwardly if the previous work was sound and the project is simply waiting, since that happens too.
How fast can you get a stalled permit moving?
The audit takes days. How fast the file moves after that depends on what is wrong. A missing signature or an unanswered correction can resolve in weeks. A missing entitlement means a hearing cycle, and no one can compress that. We give you a real sequence and real ranges rather than a promise.
We have a notice of violation. What happens now?
Enforcement generally has to be resolved before other approvals will progress, so it moves to the front of the sequence. We read the notice for what it actually requires, which is often narrower than it reads, and work the resolution with the issuing department.
Our permit expired. Is the project dead?
Usually not. Depending on the permit and how long it has been lapsed, the path may be renewal, reinstatement, or refiling, and sometimes the scope can be revised to simplify the second attempt. It is worth an audit before anyone concludes the project is over.
More services
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Place of Entertainment
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Not sure which approval your project needs?
Tell us the address and the concept. We will tell you what it takes, in writing, before you spend anything.