By Robert C. Wible

During the next four years, our construction community and state and local governments will face immense challenges as they strive to revitalize, build and maintain sustainable economies, get Americans back to work, help the nation recover from the “Great Recession” and become a more disaster-resilient society at the same time.

As a result of the recession, building and land use department staffs have been cut to
the absolute minimum in many local jurisdictions.

And now, as construction begins to rebound, it is imperative that owners, developers, designers and builders and local officials work together efficiently to ensure that building department cutbacks do not slow or imperil economic recovery by adding costly delay to the regulatory processes.