Evaluation of Costs to Process and Manage Utility and Driveway Permits

Reviewing and processing utility and driveway permits at the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) requires a considerable amount of involvement and coordination by TxDOT personnel, both at the district and division levels. Currently, TxDOT absorbs the entire cost to review, process, and archive utility and driveway permits regardless of type of permit application, proposed project scale, or required TxDOT resources involved. The purpose of the research was to evaluate the time and costs to process various types of utility and driveway permits, evaluate potential fee alternatives, determine the feasibility of transferring permitting responsibilities to local jurisdictions, and develop recommendations for access management compliance. To estimate the costs, the researchers conducted extensive interviews with TxDOT districts and divisions to characterize the permitting process and collected permit data from multiple sources. The costs estimation included direct labor, equipment, information technology, and office cost categories, as well as some costs associated with coordination activities that are directly relevant to the permitting function. Data availability enabled a differentiation between simple and complex utility permits as well as a differentiation between residential and nonresidential driveway permits. With this information, the researchers examined potential fee alternatives to cover permit administrative costs. Based on feedback from districts and divisions, the researchers concluded that transferring utility permits to local jurisdictions was not feasible given the current utility permitting structure at TxDOT. However, transferring driveway permitting to local jurisdictions is feasible under certain conditions. The researchers conducted four regional stakeholder workshops to discuss and fine-tune the research findings and recommendations.