The city of Bainbridge Island’s Planning and Community Development Department has completed an overhaul of its permitting processes, which the municipality says will result in improvements in review times, customer service and operational clarity.

The city utilized multiple improvement efforts, including holding weekly review meetings to identify and remove expired or inactive permits, reconfiguring the city’s permitting software SmartGov, applying department-wide standardization of permit tracking and workflow processes, and full department staffing, per a news release.

So far in 2025, the city has received 477 building permits and 62 planning permits. The average time for first-cycle review of planning permits decreased from 160 days in 2023 to 32 days in 2025. First cycle review times for building permits went from 130 days in 2024 to 27 days in 2025. First-cycle review is the time it takes for staff to complete an initial review and provide applicants with comments, the release says.

As of June, the city said the oldest active building permit has been waiting 37 days, and the oldest active planning permit has been waiting 43 days. Before the improvement efforts, the city said permitting queues included hundreds of stagnant permits with some dating back to 1977.

“In 2023, we were carrying an enormous volume of inactive or outdated permits that slowed the system for everyone,” director of Planning and Community Development Patty Charnas said. “We knew we needed a complete reset.”