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DeKalb County wants to make its permit approval process faster as cities in the county move to handle permitting themselves.

According to a press release from the county, DeKalb is looking for “Peer Reviewers,” certified engineers and architects who will help the county get people permits within 10 business days.

“One of the best things we can do to stimulate our local economy is to improve our processes so that it is easy to do business in DeKalb County,” Interim CEO Lee May, said in a press release. “To that end, we are asking qualified experts to become peer reviewers as we seek to we reduce our commercial plan review time to 10 days.”

Under the proposed plan, applicants would give their plans to a peer reviewer who would check to make sure it’s up to code. After the peer reviewer gives plans the OK, the applicant would then submit those plans to the county. If the county doesn’t find any code violations, applicants will receive their permits within 10 business days.

I would provide a link for people interested in becoming a peer reviewer, but the one the county provided appears to be broken.

Cities in DeKalb aren’t waiting around for the county to improve its permitting service.

As the Atlanta Journal Constitution recently reported, the city of Decatur will now handle fire marshal and permitting services for the newly-formed city of Brookhaven.

Avondale Estates Mayor Ed Rieker said his city’s decision to take over permitting made it easier for new businesses to open downtown.

“We were experiencing a six week delay at the county to look at a plan,” Rieker said. “We can turn that around in a matter of days.”