City Offers Program To Help Expedite Building Development

MIDLAND--Construction projects are popping up all over Midland, and some developers are finding the process to receive the go ahead to build hard. The City of Midland has come up with a plan to help speed up the development process.

It seems to be a never ending need to develop more to fit the needs of the booming population. City officials say errors in development proposals to planning and zoning is slowing down much of the city's potential growth.

"Starting next week, the city is going to be hosting what we call pre-submittal meetings. These are meetings are intended to help the development community work through our development process more efficiently and more quickly," said Jim Nichols, assistant city manager.

As the need to build grows the need to get development started with it grows as well.

"This is just another step we're taking to try to work better with our development team and community and hopefully allow them to get their projects done more quickly and in the end meet the needs of our citizens," said Nichols.

The city wants to help move the process along by offering pre-scheduled meetings to go over planning and zoning requirements with individual development groups.

"The four, five or six city staff, we will talk about your project at a time and then when you're done , you leave and the next project team comes in," Nichols said.

This upcoming planning project is geared toward private developers.

Nichols said, "Whether you would like to develop a single family home or an entire housing development, a small shop or a multi-million dollar mall."

City officials believe this plan will alleviate planning errors like failure to meet expansion requirements, failure to check for utility availability and zone requirements. As a result of the pre-planning, the city said developing projects will move more rapidly.

The meetings that are to be held aren't on a come all basis. Those interested have to be schedule and must fit into one of the available time slots allotted for the Wednesday 8:30-11:30 a.m. meeting times.

Officials expect that window of time will allow them time to meet with six-seven developers and/or their groups.

For more information or how to get on the agenda, you can email rspencer@midlandtexas.gover or contact the city's planning department.

All meetings will be held in the City Hall basement conference room.

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