Improving Permit Processing with Project Management Tools

The timeline for permit reviews and approval as established by the 2008 Final Mitigation Rule is integral to the compensatory mitigation program and among other things, enables efficient infrastructure and other types of development.  The gantt chart used here to display the timeline from the Rule will be a familiar tool to any mitigation banker or project manager deploying project management tools. 

As the folks working at U.S. Army Corps Civil Works, and private engineering and environmental firms universally understand, complex projects (like mitigation banks) require disciplined application of a task-oriented timeline, or else scope-creep, process-creep, and a never-ending cycle of review, revision, review (“and who’s on first”) will ensue. 

Please feel free to share this timeline or embed its schedule in your next project.

Recent U.S. Army Corps data and analysis show that Mitigation Banking Instruments (MBI’s) are unfortunately taking many years to permit.  >  Read Corps Study Here

This protracted permit processing diminishes investment in the environment, increases mitigation credit prices at the marketplace, and may cause direct financial harm(s) to property and/or project owners.

NEBA Board Chairman, John Paul Woodley: “This Gantt chart is a crucial feature of the project-management discipline, applied directly to the MBI process. Regulators, the mitigation banking community and the public will all benefit from applying this tried, tested and approved methodology to processing mitigation banking decisions on-time and under-budget.”

We’d love to hear from members about the importance of the timeline in your permitting efforts.