Is my application complete?

Your zone sets what you may build and which approval criteria your narrative has to address. Overlays sit on top of the base zone and add their own requirements, so a site can meet every base zone standard and still be short of the criteria.

Confirm the zone for the specific address before you write anything else. Nearly every avoidable completeness problem starts with a narrative written against the wrong criteria.

Bend sorts land use applications into four types, and the type decides who makes the decision, whether there is public notice, whether there is a hearing, and how long the whole thing takes.

Type I is administrative. Type II adds notice and a comment period. Type III goes to a hearings officer or the Planning Commission. Type IV is legislative and goes to City Council.

Getting this wrong early is expensive, because the submittal requirements and the notice obligations differ. Ask Planning to confirm the type rather than inferring it.

A pre-application meeting puts the reviewing departments in one room with your concept before you have spent money on a full submittal. Planning coordinates it and Engineering attend. Bend Fire and Rescue attend some but not all, checking whether the project raises anything they need to weigh in on.

Public Works Water Services is not usually in the room. Utilities and Infrastructure normally comes in later, on the infrastructure permit, though a non standard case such as a pressure zone issue or a site outside the service area does need coordinating early.

Bring questions about the criteria you are least sure of. That is the cheapest hour in the whole process.

Some application types require you to hold a neighborhood meeting before submitting, and to document that you held it.

This item was written for the prototype and has not been confirmed with City staff. Check it against the current submittal checklist for your permit type before you rely on it.

The signed application form and the correct fee. Fees are set in the City's adopted fee schedule and change on a published cycle, so check the current schedule rather than an older quote.

An application submitted without the fee is not received.

If you are not the owner of record you need the owner's written authorization to apply. Applications from agents without it come back.

This item was written for the prototype and has not been confirmed with City staff. Check it against the current submittal checklist for your permit type before you rely on it.

This is the item that most often makes an application incomplete. The narrative has to walk through each applicable approval criterion and explain how the proposal meets it. Not a project description. A criterion by criterion response.

Missing one criterion is enough for an incompleteness letter, even when the drawings show compliance, because the record has to stand on its own.

A drawn to scale set showing the site as it is and as proposed, with the dimensions and features the criteria turn on: property lines, easements, setbacks, existing and proposed structures, access, parking and grading.

Match the sheet list and scale in the checklist for your permit type.

How the site will be served for water and sewer, and how stormwater will be handled. If the project builds public infrastructure that the City will later take over, that work runs on a separate infrastructure permit, and Public Works Water Services reviews it there.

Erosion control is reviewed by the Stormwater group and applies to nearly all development, whether or not there is public infrastructure.

This item was written for the prototype and has not been confirmed with City staff. Check it against the current submittal checklist for your permit type before you rely on it.

Whether a Traffic Impact Analysis is required depends on the trips your project generates against a threshold set by Private Development. Get the determination before you submit, because commissioning a TIA late is one of the longest delays available to you.

Middle housing no longer goes through off-site transportation review, under state and local direction, but frontage improvements still apply.

City Transportation and Mobility references: Standards and Specifications (Appendix C includes the connectors and crossings map), Transportation System Plan, and Comprehensive Plan Chapter 7 (including updated Figures 7-1 and 7-2).

This item was written for the prototype and has not been confirmed with City staff. Check it against the current submittal checklist for your permit type before you rely on it.

Where the site carries a mapped natural resource, wetland, floodplain or other hazard, the relevant study has to be in the package, not promised.

This item was written for the prototype and has not been confirmed with City staff. Check it against the current submittal checklist for your permit type before you rely on it.

Fire apparatus access and hydrant placement are reviewed inside the other permits rather than through a separate Fire application. You do not submit to Fire directly.

This item was written for the prototype and has not been confirmed with City staff. Check it against the current submittal checklist for your permit type before you rely on it.

Where the criteria require them. Water Conservation reviews landscaping in the public right of way, and some on-site landscaping on commercial projects.

This item was written for the prototype and has not been confirmed with City staff. Check it against the current submittal checklist for your permit type before you rely on it.

Plans are submitted through the Online Permit Center and have to meet the City's file standards. Flattened PDFs, correct sheet naming, no password protection.

Files that do not meet the standard are returned before review starts, which costs you days for a reason that has nothing to do with your project.

Applications are filed through the City's Online Permit Center, which runs on CityView. You need an account, and the project has to be created before documents can be attached.

See the Portal questions and answers guide for the things applicants most often get stuck on here.

Permit Center staff check that the submittal has the form, the fee and the documents the checklist names. This is a presence check, not a review of content.

Passing intake does not mean your application is complete. The completeness review comes next and is where the 30 day clock runs.

This item was written for the prototype and has not been confirmed with City staff. Check it against the current submittal checklist for your permit type before you rely on it.

Decided by staff against clear and objective standards. No public notice and no hearing, so these move fastest.

Because there is no hearing to explain yourself at, the written record carries the whole argument.

Staff decision, but notice goes out to surrounding property owners and there is a 14 day comment period before the decision issues.

Comments received become part of the record and the decision has to respond to them. Decisions typically land six to eight weeks after the application is complete.

A public hearing before a hearings officer or the Planning Commission, with notice and a full evidentiary record.

Plan for the hearing schedule, not just the review time. Hearing bodies meet on a fixed calendar.

Legislative decisions, such as code and plan amendments, go to City Council, usually with a Planning Commission recommendation first.

These are policy decisions rather than applications of existing criteria, and they run on their own timeline.