In an effort to boost housing production and reduce construction costs, the City of Sacramento has launched a new initiative aimed at improving the development approval process. 

Called “Streamline Sacramento,” the 2025 initiative is led by Mayor Kevin McCarty and Councilmember Phil Pluckebaum and seeks to identify ways to accelerate project approvals, improve efficiency and increase certainty for developers. 

“Tuesday night the city council took its first action to come from our Streamline Sacramento task force,” said Mayor Kevin McCarty. “This task force is aimed at streamlining our permitting process so we can make Sacramento a better place to live and do business.” 

This effort comes as the City’s most recent eight-year housing strategy (2021-2029 Housing Element) annual report highlights a total of 2,387 housing units that were issued building permits in the past year. Every city and county in California are required to adopt a Housing Element, subject to State approval, and report annually on progress. 

The 2024 numbers fell short of the annual Regional Housing Needs Allocation goal of 5,700 new housing units per year. Many cities and counties face challenges meeting their goals due to development constraints such as high interest rates and cost of construction materials. 

Streamline Sacramento’s effort focuses on all aspects of the building permit process from submittal of building permit applications, to plan review, issuance of building permit, inspections, and final inspection leading to certificate of occupancy. City staff will be working on identifying ways to increase efficiency, speed-up approval times and provide more certainty to the process. 

“While the City is always looking for ways to streamline and make our processes more efficient, the development market is also continuously changing and we want to make sure our building processes are working well for those who are investing and building in Sacramento,” said Matt Hertel, assistant director with the City’s Community Development Department. 

Here are some examples of improvements in progress:  

• Virtual inspections: Incorporating virtual inspections for minor projects will save time by allowing inspectors to perform remote inspections instead of needing to travel to the site.

• Bond Opportunities for Land Development (BOLD) program: Offered by the California Municipal Finance Authority (CMFA), this program, approved by City Council on April 8, can be used to finance public infrastructure required for new development within the City.

• Instant building permit issuance: Considering updating the Building Division’s minor permit process and developing a building permit check box form that an applicant self-certifies and instantly receives a building permit for minor permits (e.g., hot water heater and residential PV solar with SolarAPP+). This would eliminate the wait time for applicants to receive their building permit.

For more information and to learn about ways to provide input, please visit Streamline Sacramento’s web page.