The ransomware attack that resulted in just about every one of the city’s systems being taken offline is still lingering at Dallas City Hall. Servers were slowly and painstakingly brought back online as the city’s IT department determined what had been compromised. But there is progress.
Among the casualties in the long, arduous reboot was the city’s development services department, which issues building permits. By June 30, staff reported 870 “trade” permits sitting in a queue because the department was playing catch up. Two weeks later, the city reported the queue had been reduced by 818, down to 52, and those permits are now being issued over the counter again.
These are permits for things like fences, roofs, foundation repairs, demolition, and small structures, rather basic construction projects that most often affects Dallas homeowners. Assistant City Manager Majed A. Al-Ghafry informed the Council of the news in a memo on Friday. He didn’t mention how long it’s taking to get more complicated permits issued.
The backlog came as the department was finally getting a handle on how to speed up the permitting process, which had rightfully taken a lot of criticism over the past two years as builders reported lengthy delays in getting city approval for their projects.
One of the innovations the department enacted was a pop-up permitting day, where contractors and DIYers could walk in and pick up permits for less complicated jobs like fences, roofing, and swimming pools. Speeding up the process for those would mean that staff would have more availability to work on the thornier permits that came across their desks.
“You can come in and we’re going to try to do everything we can to help you with these little simple permits, things that should be quick hits,” said Development Services Director Andrew Espinoza when the program was announced. “And what it’s going to do is it’s going to free up some of the time that we typically spend during the week trying to address these types of issues, so we can now focus on some of those more complex, complicated projects that kind of sometimes take longer to perform.”
The ransomware attack threw that into disarray. The Dallas Morning News profiled a man who couldn’t get permission to build a fence around his home in South Oak Cliff. There had been some positive movement before the hackers got into the system: by May of this year, it was taking staff a median of five days to review and process residential permits, which was an increase from 58 in 2022 and 72 in 2021.
In the memo, Al-Ghafry says the department is moving back toward that goal.
“Staff’s efforts and activities to improve the progress of single-trade permits consist of staff working overtime and weekends, in conjunction with cross training additional team members from various work groups to perform the needed task,” he wrote.
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