King County Department of Local Services - Permitting - Renton, Washington

Dick T.

Worst bureaucracy ever encountered...and I worked for federal government for quarter century! All employees act is if citizens work for them and not other way around. They do not answer phones or emails in professional timeline. Absolutely train wreck of an organization.

Beth O.

One star is too high. Indeed, KC is worse than the City of Seattle, or even King County a few years ago. Over a year trying to get a permit and legal lot (has been one for over 50 years), address (over 50 years with an address), both take months of delay. Then critical area wetland, critical area steep slope, and ridiculous delays with 5 site visits. The hired Environmental and Geotech experts are ignored by the County. Apparently so many rules and regulations no one can seriously keep up. The entire department should be abolished and privatized.

Management appears to be a big problem, probably because governing authorities are trying to fix the problem with more laws and rules. And the inability to hire long term quality experts because the pay is so low. The County is acting more from fear of liability than getting safe homes built for people and getting the homeless off the streets with lower cost housing.

The cost of permitting for a single-family home when all the experts and delays are included can push $100,000 with most of it wasted on red tape having nothing to do with safety. High cost of housing is in part on the backs of elected authorities.

Sharif M.

Called for inspection on Friday may 31st, inspector said between 10-1, showed at at 9 30 and failed me. If Allen had been there at 10am, the job would be ready and passed. Called Ian his supervisor and response was 9 30 is in the time frame. Ian is a liar trying to protect his employees and not able to handle situations that involve allowing the right thing. I will be lodging formal complaints about the inspector and this Ian guy as King County is the worst agency to deal with and the need to know.

Art G.

Worst office to work with, simple plans review 5-8 month. You make people work without permits! Screw your permits!

Vito V.

I can't stand the hours and the rotating staff .. it doesn't work. The time the employees spend on issues is a lot I'm sure. However it would be way better if they helped you navigate through the process with a more hands on approach. The same time would be spent the difference is a focused approach instead of answering one email at a time with time just slipping away. It's not effective at all. Be better

Julia

Really, really hard to work with. No one in the office for over a year. Woman who was supposed to be working on our permit got fired or quit. Six months after putting in initial app, still hadn't heard one word from them, then extreme rudeness, not helpful on the phone. The steps/hoops they want you to go through aren't clear, so you never know what you should or *can* be doing. Convoluted & expensive--have to have 987 studies done by every type of "-ologist" you can('t) even imagine before you can even start the process. And yep, you get to pay for all of those reports/studies. When calling or emailing with questions, no one knows the answers. This place needs a major overhaul.

T M.

It must be all the DPER employees giving this agency 5 stars, because it is a joke. If this were run like a regular business, they would have been bankrupt, because they are totally incompetent.

After going through a building process that was about 1 1/2 years from start of application to permit until the house was done, the inspector that came out for the final after multiple visits throughout the 1 year+ we were building decided 2 weeks before we were to move into our house that we had to do a full drainage review. I don't know why it took them that long to come up with that, but boy, what a surprise.

They showed us the napkin that had our rough house plan on it and told us we were not supposed to clear more than 50 ft around our house. Of course there were not guides on the napkin actually showing the acreage to be cleared, but whatever it was, we got it wrong.

It's 2+ years later and they still have not approved a drainage plan for us, so our front yard is awesome piles of dirt. Once we get in that drainage pond they want us to build, it should be much more appealing. We all know that drainage tile and grass/landscaping couldn't have possibly done what a huge retention pond can do.

I like calling DPER just to get routed to voice mail and leaving messages that never get a response. Ditto on the emails too. It's not just the employees that suck, but their management too. I'd say they are all equally incompetent.

The funny thing is, we tried to follow all the rules and do what we were supposed to do. I guess this is why most people just go ahead and bypass notifying the county about anything, because if you try to follow the rules, they make your life miserable.

Signed, Still waiting for a whole lot of nothing.

Ashton K.

Worst jurisdiction to work with in the USA. Poor responses if you're even lucky enough to get one. This county should be taken to court for lack of effective action.