The Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety closed its doors to the public 2 years ago as we all did. We have all had to adapt and work with the constraints of the pandemic.

If you're reading this you are most likely in the A/E/C field. We have all adapted and most of us have done so well, but unfortunately the same cannot be said for LADBS. We are asking Mayor Garcetti to direct LADBS to open their development service centers to the public and follow the examples set by neighboring cities. It's time.

Our inability to obtain permits timely directly affects the economic development and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the past 2 years we've experienced:

• New untrained or unprepared plan checkers
• Lost plans
• Plan checkers letting plans sit on their desk for months
• Notifications sent to wrong email addresses
• Waiting days or weeks just for authorization to drop off verification plans
• Non-responsive plan checkers
• Simple over the counter plan checks that used to take an hour now take months
• Round after round of plan check with new comments each time
• Clearances are exponentially more difficult to obtain