Keane looks to trim red tape for city permits

Just back from the now-wintry private sector, Charleston planning and development czar Tim Keane is looking to rehab the city's notoriously maddening and drawn-out permitting process.

Keane recalled a recent conversation he had with an exasperated real estate developer, who went unidentified.

"It's not that I don't want to do what you're asking me," the builder cried, referring to the city, not Keane personally. "But just tell me what you want!"

Such complaints are commonplace among developers doing business in Charleston, as Keane readily acknowledges.

"We have to be committed to high quality, but you don't get quality from beating people up for two years," he said last week.

Keane used a basic dwelling to drive home his point that the municipal building bureaucracy had evolved -- or devolved -- to the point that it was more about "serving process, not people." Speaking at a local real estate luncheon on Thursday, Keane unfurled a flow chart mapping the myriad hurdles and contingencies that anyone seeking to construct a simple single-family house must navigate. The enlarged document was wide enough that he needed a volunteer to hold up one end so the audience could see the lengthy labyrinth of red tape.

"I think that's so punishing, I really do," he said.

Keane had been the city's chief planner until striking out on his own in 2004 to run his urban design business, Keane & Co. The firm has consulted on real estate projects all over the country, from Mixson in North Charleston and Central Mount Pleasant to the redevelopment of a contaminated parcel on Lake Superior.

Then, the recession settled in, credit lines froze and "everybody stopped building things," said Keane, whose business is still active but not working on any deals within the city limits.

"I am completely aware of the conditions you're facing," he said in remarks to the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors' Commercial Investment Division.

Keane returned to the public sector full-time in December to run Charleston's Department of Planning, Preservation & Sustainability. He said Mayor Joe Riley asked him to tackle "the meat and potatoes stuff. The fundamentals."

Fixing the broken permitting process is, for now, a top priority.

"The mayor is absolutely committed to this," Keane said.

As it turns out, the timing is ideal to retool the way the department functions, Keane said. The real estate slump gives the city the time it needs to ponder and make the necessary changes.

"When things pick up, things need to be better," he said.

While short on specifics of how he plans to streamline the permitting bureaucracy, Keane said he is confident he will be able to report some accomplishments by year's end. He also allowed that his quest has ruffled some old-school feathers within the city, but he vowed that institutional resistance won't derail the effort.

"It's not about consensus anymore," he said.

Contact John McDermott at 937-5572 or jmcdermott@postandcourier.com.