News

For Immediate Release
Contacts:			Click here to return to Press Releases
Dominick Pangallo: (617)722-2575
Email: Dominick@JohnKeenan.org
May 19, 2006

House Passes Streamlined Permitting Bill to
Spur Economic Development and Job Creation

BOSTON, MA -- Taking aim at one of the major obstacles to economic development and job creation in Massachusetts, the House passed a bill to streamline the state’s commercial permitting process by a vote of 134-15, State Representative John Keenan (D-Salem) announced today. The legislation is a direct response to concerns the business community expressed during a statewide listening tour the House conducted last spring.

“Excessive regulation and red tape is bad for business, bad for the economy and bad for the overall quality of life here in the Commonwealth,” said Representative Keenan. “This balanced, sensible legislation will get shovels in the ground sooner rather than later and make Massachusetts more open to business investment, while still preserving due process for legitimate concerns.”

In North Carolina the process by which businesses receive licenses to relocate or expand takes two to six months. In Massachusetts permitting can take up to three years. EMC, for example, has spent over four and a half years trying to build a new facility in the Commonwealth. The House bill would expedite this process by:

Creating incentives for communities to participate by offering site-specific – not just community-wide – opt-in;

Setting the permitting timeframe at 180 days;

Decreasing square footage requirements to accommodate smaller projects;

Creating a grant program for communities to obtain development staffing assistance and providing statewide technical assistance to help communities further streamline their permitting processes;

Creating a Massachusetts Permit Regulatory Office to serve as the primary state contact for businesses looking to relocate or expand here;

Preventing the abuse of the legal system that too often delays valuable housing, mixed use and commercial projects by creating a new session of the Land Court to exclusively hear and decide land use and environmental permitting appeals;

Amending “ten taxpayers suits” to ensure that at least five signatories reside in the impacted community;

Appropriating $250,000 to eliminate the backlog of appeals at the Department of Environmental Protection.

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