In a city pushing development efforts in the face of high office vacancies, Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam said Thursday the city has cut the average time for building permit approvals by more than half and is expanding the number of inspectors in the field.
“We all know if you’re looking to start a business here, build a home here in the state of Connecticut, that permitting time makes such a big difference,” Arulampalam said during a press conference. “Those extra days mean dollars in your pocket. It means how quickly we can get these small businesses up and running and adding to the fabric of our community.”
Arulampalam said he hopes the change sends a broader message: “Hartford is open for business. We’re going to continue to make it as easy as possible to do business with the City of Hartford.”
The average time between the application for a permit and its issuing fell 57% to 17 days in 2024 from 40 days in 2023, according to Arulampalam, who took office at the start of last year. At the same time, the number of permits issued rose by nearly 5% to 5,000 in 2024 compared with 4,800 the previous year, Arulampalam said.
As Arulampalam took office, developers and business owners — large and small — had been complaining privately for months about the slow pace of city construction permitting and inspections. The debut of a $29 million renovation of the downtown’s aging Hilton Hartford hotel into a mix of a smaller hotel and apartments was delayed almost a year, partly because of the issue. The renovated building opened in March 2024.
“It is something that I’ve heard from so many businesses, and it is something that we are really focused on as a priority in our early days,” Arulampalam said, soon after taking office in 2024.
On Thursday, Judith H. Rothschild, the city’s director of licenses and inspections, said problems were corrected throughout the permitting process, including a more intensive focus at the beginning of the process to make sure all necessary information submitted to the city.
“We discovered that, in many cases, all of that starting application information was not actually submitted so we did our best to identify that first snag and to have our staff reach out not once, not twice but at least three times to notify the applicant that ‘We need this information please so we can accept your application and move it to the next step.'”
Rothschild said the city is encouraged by the shortened timeframe for securing a permit “and we intend to even improve that number.”
Jeff Auker, the city’s director of development services who oversees licenses and inspections, said perhaps the biggest change has come in promoting a culture of collaboration.
“That collaboration can take place in the hallway,” Auker said at the press conference. “It can be just grabbing somebody as they’re walking out, or walk into somebody’s office and say. ‘Hey, I saw that you were working on this over here. Tell me about it. What is the big issue and how can we solve for that?'”
The city also is seeking to expand the number of its building inspectors that are key to moving more complex development toward completion. In the past, the city had struggled to retain them because competing municipalities often could offer higher pay.
In 2021, according to Rothschild, there were three inspectors and now, the number has grown to eight, including those also focused on blight but often fill in elsewhere. There are two, full-time openings for licensed building inspectors
“Hartford has upped its salary, it’s very nice,” Rothschild said. “We also have a sign-on bonus and a retention bonus available for building inspectors interested in joining our great team — just saying.”
The starting salary is $89,113, according to the city.
Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at kgosselin@courant.com.
