Candidate: Kenneth J. Schilling

Degree of: Doctor of Public Administration

Department: School of Public Affairs and Administration

Title: The One-stop Permit and Plan Review Center: Three Case Studies

Committee: Dr. Peter Kobrak, Chair
Dr. James Visser
Dr. William Hoyt

Date: Friday, May 13, 2005 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
SPAA Conference Room

Abstract: This study provides a detailed description of the one-stop permit and plan review center, and organizational innovation that is being introduced in numerous U.S. cities to improve governmental performance. The chance represents a streamlining of local development review and code compliance functions. Its appeal, seemingly, rests on ins superior performance in resolving longstanding problems with standard development approval processes and on successes experiences with its use.

In pursuing this research, I record this one-stop application's diversity of form, contrast it with the system it replaces, explore the rationale and process that led to its adoption, and enumerate its useful features. The research is based on case studies of three Midwestern cities of comparable size: Grand Rapids, MI, Dayton, OH, and Des Moines, IA. A common conclusion of these studies was that instituting one-stop centers improved performance along several dimensions: process simplification and transparency, collocation of review staff with accompanying synergies, reduced processing time, greater customer convenience, and better customer-staff relations. Centers also were effective in clarifying bureaucratic accountability.

On another level, this research seeks to test a theoretical framework put forth by Feldman and Khademian (2001) in their essay “Principles for Public Management: From Dichotomies to Interdependence.” Their essay confronts a long-standing dilemma of public governance: “how to manage flexibility and accountability.” The authors suggest that management action (flexible leadership) and governance structures (providing accountability) are in fact mutually constitutive rather than dichotomous as generally construed in public administration literature. This study examines that framework in application to the one-stop center, to assess whether there is a tradeoff between flexibility and accountability or they can be mutually achieved. Seven propositions derived from Feldman and Khademian's essay generally were determined to be verified. Thus, as applied to the one-stop permit and plan review center, it was concluded that flexibility and accountability can be regarded as interdependent rather than mutually exclusive.

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