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# Officials and developers spar over costly, slow Santa Monica building permits
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/carolyn-sackariason-daily-press-santa-monicas-finest-get-briefed-behind-city-hall-wednesday-before-heading-out-to-patrol-the-citys-streets-excessive-f/
- Published: 2002-02-21T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:03:14.000Z
- Author: Andrew Fixmer
- Tags: Government & Politics, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Developers frustrated at city’s slow system*

City Hall’s bureaucracy costs residents and professional builders thousands of dollars in what they describe as excessive fees and obstructive delays.

Officials and local developers met Tuesday to hash out the city’s flawed building permit system, which some claim is nothing more than bureaucratic red tape designed to make the government big money.

“They are spending other people’s money and not thinking of it at all,” said Santa Monica Councilman Herb Katz, who is an architect. “They aren’t thinking of the user and how much it’s costing them.”

Katz said on a recent project involving a $331,000 single-family home, the permits from the city cost more than $18,000.

“This is insanity just on the cost basis alone,” said Katz. “No average homeowner can afford that.”

The process, which was set up by the city last October, was designed to avoid last-minute glitches and costly delays. It also was supposed to give builders the information they need before they even begin the approval process, officials said.

As part of the plan, a city manager is assigned to guide each project — from the largest developer in town to the do-it yourself homeowner — through the complex jumble of city building and zoning codes.

“The process in Santa Monica can be difficult,” said Jay Trevino, the city’s planning administrator. “The process is quite complicated. It’s designed to keep Santa Monica the special place it is, but the by-product can be a complicated (building) approval process.”

Developers, architects and general contractors say the new system has generated nothing but more hassles for them. About 50 of them showed up to Tuesday’s meeting and were clearly frustrated that the new system has failed them.

“The people it has helped so far has been first-time users, but those are usually last time users too,” said Peter Schechter, a Santa Monica architect. “They are typically only fixing up their home and not doing multiple projects.”

Under the new plan, city officials are supposed to grant new permits in about two months.

“We want to track the process from beginning to end,” said Trevino. “We established turnaround times because there was a lot of concern over the amount of time it was taking us to process things.

And time is money.”

For professional builders with complex and detailed plans, the new system has brought an already slow system to a crawl.

“The (city’s) planners are already over worked, and to expect them to take on more work is almost incomprehensible,” said David Hibbert, a Santa Monica-based architect.

Hibbert said on one recent project the city forgot to pass along the plans to the mechanical engineer for review. When the plans were finally returned, he said they had to send them right back again.

“They haven’t been any help to us and they haven’t been very helpful for us so far,” he added. “There is tremendous pressure to make the (deadlines) and the quality of their fact-checking hasn’t been very good.”

But Trevino argues the new system, though flawed, is working and the city is continuing to make the approval process faster.

“We are meeting our target time 75 percent of the time,” he said. “But we still need further improvement.”

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/022102-01_01.jpg)

Santa Monica’s finest get briefed behind City Hall Wednesday before heading out to patrol the city’s streets. (Photo: Carolyn Sackariason/Daily Press)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 21, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/022102.pdf?ref=smdp.com)