Excellent Idea: Permitting Support for Business

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The goal of permitting ombudsman Gregory P. Bialecki , 46, will be to reduce approval time to six months. It now takes between two and three years from the time businesses apply for their permits to the time they break ground on new buildings, said Bialecki, a real estate lawyer who is leaving the firm of DLA Piper for the post.

The job was created by the Legislature last summer as part of a law to speed review of development projects. Accelerating that process, a frequent theme of Patrick’s campaign for governor, is seen as a competitive issue, especially in the state’s efforts to retain and attract leading-edge technology and life sciences companies.

“Massachusetts wants you,” the governor told about 400 people at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council in Boston’s Copley Marriott hotel yesterday. “We want your companies, we want your expansion, we want your growth.”

In his keynote address to the council, Patrick said he recognizes that Massachusetts high-tech executives looking to expand their operations are being wooed by other states that have worked to streamline their own permitting processes. To counter these overtures, “we will move at the speed of business,” the governor promised.

Patrick also said he would “model” on Beacon Hill best practices from the state’s technology industry. On the state government website, www.mass.gov, he said, he will begin weekly podcasts to address issues of the week, and eventually set up a weblog to allow Massachusetts residents to weigh in on public policies. He said he is also considering legislation, backed by technology leaders, to make it easier to prosecute the senders of computer viruses in the state.

But in the early weeks of the Patrick administration, the focus is on the permitting and approval process. “Right now there’s a feeling that, for businesses or developers who are proposing projects, there’s nowhere they can go to find someone who can help them understand the process and work their way through it,” Bialecki lamented.

Bialecki will report to Dan O’Connell , the secretary of housing and economic development.

In his new job, Bialecki said he would coordinate or assist companies in securing up to eight to 10 permits from state and municipal agencies. These include, among others, environmental, sewer connector, air quality, traffic, and brownfield permits from the state, along with building permits, site plans, subdivision approvals, and conservation permits from cities or towns. Other states, like North Carolina and Texas, already have streamlined their permitting.

“We’re catching up, there’s no question,” Bialecki said.

He said the state will start keeping track of how much time elapses once companies file for permits, and may post monthly updates on the state website. “When you come in seeking your permit, we start the clock,” Bialecki said.

He said he’ll also work to help cities and towns accelerate their permitting, using state funds in some cases to upgrade infrastructure or provide technical assistance in handling permits.

Bialecki said he’ll make recommendations to Patrick and O’Connell on how to break bottlenecks in the process.

And he’ll benchmark Massachusetts against other states that compete for technology and life sciences businesses. “As far as I’m concerned, we will borrow and copy other people’s good ideas shamelessly,” he said.

The new permitting push was welcomed yesterday by David I. Begelfer , the chief executive of the Massachusetts chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties.

“This is critical,” he said. “Many local companies have had great difficulty figuring out if the state is even with them on this. We clearly need someone at the governor’s office who understands the problem of time being a killer.”

But Kristina Egan , the director of the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance, a coalition of housing, environmental, and economic development groups, said it is important that streamlining the permitting process not compromise the environment.

“We don’t want to see wetlands regulations or other regulations bulldozed over,” she said.

Meeting with reporters after speaking to the council, Patrick said he will seek to attract out-of-state companies to expand in Massachusetts. But he said his priority will be to ensure that companies already based here feel comfortable expanding in the state.

“One thing I learned in the course of the campaign is there’s too little love companies here feel from the government,” he said.

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