Doubling Applications and Revenue: The Second Year of DC's Velocity Program

• April 10th 2020

by Nena Perry-Brown

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Two years after the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs introduced programs to help developers, builders, and property owners expedite the permitting process, UrbanTurf is taking another look at how the programs are being used.

For a range of fees, the Velocity and Expedition Services are meant to speed up the permitting process for people at various design and planning stages, sometimes enabling permits to be secured within a day.

The Velocity programs received 175 applications in the first year, gathering over $6.25 million in fees for projects ranging from 1,000 to two million square feet in size. The program grew significantly in its second year. From March 2019 to March 2020, the number of applications exceeded 450 and fees exceeded $14.5 million, UrbanTurf has learned.

The fees collected per project went as high as nearly $638,000 for work on WMATA's new headquarters at the old Reporter's Building in L'Enfant Plaza. At least 150 permits were for single- or two-family properties, outnumbering those for apartment houses (115), offices (65) and mixed-use (38). 

Some other notable expedited projects include the next phase at Art Place, components of the Parks at Walter Reed, Georgetown University's dorms at Gonzaga, the residences at Scottish Rite, a shrunken development in Shaw, and a new restaurant at the old Republic Gardens.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/year-two-of-dcs-velocity-program/16703.