Processing and issuing building permits is a core function of municipal government, ensuring new and remodeled structures are safe and code-compliant. But a mixture of staffing impacts, a new code and bandwidth issues have resulted in the Town of Carbondale earning a reputation of exceptional delays that have caused tangible financial impacts to local entrepreneurs.
The Town has a plan to combat its backlog of permits, with a new plans examiner that started this month and a new permit managing software, CityInspect, set to go live early next year.
Chester White owns two commercial properties in Carbondale that he’s spent time and money getting through permit review: Main Line Social at 522 Highway 133 and Sprazzo at 689 Main Street. Neither is open yet, despite previous hopes for Sprazzo to open over the summer, due to months and weeks-long waits within the permitting processes.
“Our little town has big government process,” he said. “I’m not opposed to all this stuff. I just don’t think it should take nine months to get through.”
The Building Department previously had only three staff: Aaron Kuhns, building official, Mary Sikes, building permit technician, and Japeth Hoffman, building inspector. Responsibilities are not interchangeable within the department.
Ryan Hyland, Carbondale’s new town manager, started in his role in August, moving from Silverthorne. He said upon arrival, conversations with staff and community members highlighted the need to prioritize hiring the open plans examiner position, which had been open for nearly a year. Typical mountain town hiring challenges, like housing, made the niche job difficult to fill, according to Hyland. The position was approved during the 2025 budget process.
“We’ll own some of that frustration and some of that criticism. And in some cases, I think it’s probably not necessarily fair,” Hyland said. “Perception is reality, right? And I think that the perception out there is that things are taking too long and that’s something that we need to address.”
Hyland said that the Town missed opportunities to manage and communicate expectations, but also that some applications take longer to reach completion than others.
“You will have folks who really understand the code, and they have great submittals, and that just doesn’t take as long,” he said. “In some cases, if there’s a lot of having to go back and forth, maybe it takes three or four weeks on the builder’s side to make those adjustments.”
It’s a balancing act of the Town acting as a partner, but not actively designing or contributing to an application.
Ryan Larkin, a 13-year resident of Carbondale, owns Larkin Construction and is the general contractor on the Townline Trucks project, the food truck/bar/communal-space concept slated for 111 Main Street — on the literal town line.
Anyone seeking permits does need to take care with their applications, Larkin agreed, but said that has become a challenge with staff and code changes and minimal outreach.
“There’s [been] a learning curve, I think, for everyone,” said Larkin, “even people that have been [working with the Building Department] a long time.”
He said he averages one or two projects with the Town annually, and has seen their processing pace grind to a crawl in the past year. For instance, a change from the proposed all-electric heating to a boiler system at Townline Trucks caused an approximate four-month delay.
“What seemed like a simple change that we could easily incorporate had to go back to the Building Department. It had to go back to engineers. It had to go back to energy calculations,” he said. “Then it goes and it sits on somebody’s desk until they can get to it.”
With another project he’s got in town, Larkin is managing expectations with the client. “Carbondale this year feels like it’s significantly more difficult than it’s ever been,” he said.
The Building Department’s webpage alerts applicants of extended permit time estimates for various project types — including up to 16 weeks for new residential and commercial buildings and eight weeks for remodels — after an application is deemed complete, which can take weeks or months on its own. In April, the same notifications were present as the Building Department was “working on code adoption,” but with estimates shorter by two to four weeks.
The Town underwent its building code update this year, meant to align the code with standard efficiency goals and neighboring jurisdictions. SAFEbuilt, the community development service the Town uses to streamline permit review, is not able to review “green aspects” of code, Hyland said, which has added to the backup since the rewrite.
“I’ve been, upon my arrival, asking for patience as we’re trying to bring the new position on, bring new software on,” Hyland said. “We really do want to be seen as a resource, as a partner. It’s tough, because at the end of the day, we are tasked with the health and safety of buildings.”
According to Town data, the Building Department issued 297 permits in 2025 as of October; 396 permits in 2024; 343 permits in 2023; and 362 permits in 2022.
The financial impact of delays is palpable for those on the other side of the applications.
White received a demolition permit for Main Line Social on March 3. He said crews got to work immediately, preparing it for the next phase. However, a new commercial permit was not issued until Oct. 15, according to Town records.
Only recently, White got a permit for a vent hood that the Town required him to replace in the Sprazzo’s kitchen, after submitting an application for it on Sept. 15. The total investment in the equipment was $215,000, by White’s calculation, with the new hood itself, engineering, design consultation and more. Now, they can install the hood — the final roadblock to opening.
The delays also impacted staff recruitment, White said. With initial projections for Sprazzo to be open in August, presuming the preexisting building would fall under an abbreviated review, permit delays forced him to push start dates back for new employees.
“We had reached out to really high quality candidates, many of whom are Carbondale residents,” he said. “We had to rescind a lot of offers and opportunities from our neighbors who need this money and want these good jobs. And instead, we’re like, ‘Sorry, it’s going to be October,’ and then it’s like, ‘No, November,’ and now we’re looking at December.”
Over at Townline, the four-month delay on the electricity source change meant the framing inspection was four months delayed, Larkin said. They had hoped to open this past summer, but now they’re aiming for the end of 2025. That impacts not only his clients, but his own business in managing schedules and taking on projects.
These financial impacts lead to value engineering decisions, like downgrading elevator plans for Main Line Social. White said he’s still committed to purchasing share platters, plates and bowls from Carbondale Clay Center artists in support of the community.
In an extreme example, one Carbondale entrepreneur, who asked not to be named in this story, said that delays with the Building Department contributed to their moving on from their business dream.
Hyland stressed that his door, email and phoneline is open to anyone who has questions or concerns about the permit timelines. He added that he does not tolerate any insinuation of retribution toward an applicant for negative feedback.
“I think adding that new position will get us out of some backlog and get us to a new equilibrium that we can deliver services to the community with the speed that feels right for everybody,” he said. “We need to do some remodeling [at Town Hall to accommodate more office space], but I think this experience shows that when that workload starts to pile up, you have to figure out how to get the resources to get that additional body in here.”
Hyland said he expects the new plans examiner to hit the ground running and immediately get to work processing permits. And the new software is a dual-facing permit review system — meaning both applicants Town staff will be able to track progress online with digital plan review, inspections and reporting.
The Town also intends to host a Building Department open house or another kind of dialogue to answer questions, give updated timeline estimates and form relationships in the community. The date on that is yet to be determined.