MORGANTOWN – Inconsistent and overly burdensome.
Members of Morgantown City Council said people looking to develop or undertake improvement projects within the city are too often met with an administrative process that seems geared to delay and deny progress.
And, they added, it’s costing the city money.
The issue, under the heading “Development Services Performance,” was one of the talking points raised during a recent conversation on economic development within the city.
“Development services and our planning and permitting environment is one of our most important economic development tools. It really is the framework by which economic development, activity and growth happen in our city. And right now, it’s unpredictable,” Councilor Mark Downs said. “We see shifting requirements and prolonged timelines that create real friction, and it’s been getting progressively worse over the course of the last 10 to 12 years. I think really since [former City Manager] Dan Boroff, it’s been getting worse. I believe it’s one of the foundational reasons for the revenue situation that we see – certainly not all of it – but it’s a big contributor. We see business after business that isn’t willing to invest in our city limits.”
Members pointed to examples.
Deputy Mayor Brian Butcher, who serves as the Executive Director with Scott’s Run Settlement House, said an emergency home repair program offered through the agency shies away from projects within the city “because of being burned by permitting restrictions.”
Mayor Danielle Trumble said a recent project at her home ultimately went forward after days spent unsuccessfully trying to sort out whether a permit was even required.
“I’m still not clear on if I needed a permit for that or not, but I didn’t pay for one. The contractor came to my house and was like, ‘Mayor, your online system is the worst thing I’ve ever tried to deal with. I get permits in Star City and Granville all the time. They are happy to take my money. They are happy to allow me to do work without the scrutiny that we are constantly put under. I’m just going to stop doing work in the city of Morgantown,’” Trumble said. “I think that’s where a lot of business people are these days, unfortunately. And I agree with Mark that it’s one of the factors putting a huge strain on our budget. People either refuse to do work within the city, or when they do work within the city, they just don’t follow our process.”
She continued.
“I feel like we treat applicants as if they’re an inconvenience too often,” Trumble said. “I feel like we like to play gotcha sometimes, where it’s like, ‘Well, you have to resubmit one form or you forgot to put this one piece of information, so the clock starts over. We get 10 more days now.’”
City administration is aware of the issue.
In February, Development Services Coordinator Rickie Yeager presented the result of a yearlong effort to define permit application timelines and delivery expectations tied to some 55 city permits across the organization. That effort came after the April 2024 transition away from a paper-based system to an online permitting platform powered by GIS.
City leadership explained at the time that the new process was resulting in improved turnaround times and a better overall customer experience.
Butcher said the council ultimately needs to be able to see the data verifying as much.
“The only thing that I’ve heard consistently around code enforcement and development services since I’ve been on council is how inconsistent it is. That’s the most consistent thing I hear,” he said.
Councilor Jenny Selin noted the city has a professional, knowledgeable staff, but limited resources to work with. She also noted the city is largely surrounded by a county with little to no enforcement mechanism in place, making any regulation appear burdensome by comparison.
“We do well and people are happy buying houses in the city limits or other buildings in city limits because we have the code enforcement process. So for economic development, we provide a better product because we have code enforcement. So, whatever we can do to balance timelines … but I think we have excellent code enforcement.”
Downs said his concerns were a rebuke of the city’s process, not its personnel.
He went on to address the comparison with the county.
“Yeah, it’s the wild west out there. There is no code enforcement. But what we don’t see is buildings falling down. We don’t see people spontaneously combusting when they walk into a business that changed use from retail to assembly … For me, when I hear that, ‘Well, it’s the wild west.’ That’s just an excuse, and I don’t buy it,” he said.
“It’s an excuse for us to do nothing, and we can’t do nothing here because it’s costing our residents terribly in terms of the services that we’re able to provide. When we have people that are leaving the system because the system is too flawed, too problematic, not working well enough, that’s less safe than if we implement a system that’s easier to comply with, right?”
