Regulatory Streamlining — Regulatory Roadmap

Summary

The Washington State Department of Commerce submits "Regulatory Streamlining — Regulatory Roadmap", an update to the Legislature per RCW 43.330.440(9), dated January 2020. The report states that HB 1818, enacted in 2013, directed Commerce to lead partnerships to streamline the business regulatory process, and that Commerce has piloted Regulatory Roadmaps for restaurant startups, manufacturing siting feasibility and residential construction since 2014. It states that Commerce started work in early 2018 on Regulatory Roadmap 2.0, an online portal developed with Pierce County and the city of Sumner as launch partners. The portal is focused on manufacturing siting feasibility and lets users select a jurisdiction and type of manufacturing use to display regulatory requirements.

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Regulatory Streamlining
— Regulatory Roadmap



Update to the Legislature per RCW 43.330.440(9)




                                         January 2020

                                         REPORT TO THE LEGISLATURE

                                         Lisa Brown, Director
Acknowledgments

Washington State Department of Commerce



Local Partners

Kevin Clegg
Pierce County Economic Development
kevin.clegg@piercecountywa.gov
253.798.6639

Ryan Windish
City of Sumner Economic Development
ryanw@sumner.wa.gov
253.299.5524

Washington State Department of Commerce

Robb Zerr
Managing Director
robb.zerr@commerce.wa.gov
206.256.6111

Lynn Fetch
Program Manager
lynn.fetch@commerce.wa.gov
360.725.2810

Mary Baldwin
Program Coordinator
mary.baldwin@commerce.wa.gov
360.725.2815

1011 Plum St. SE
P.O. Box 42525
Olympia, WA 98504-2525

www.commerce.wa.gov
For people with disabilities, this report is available
on request in other formats. To submit a request,
please call 360.725.4000 (TTY 360.586.0772)




 REGULATORY STREAMLINING -- REGULATORY ROADMAP
Table of Contents
Executive Summary........................................................................................................................... 2

Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 4

Update on the Regulatory Roadmap Program ..................................................................................... 5

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 6




  REGULATORY STREAMLINING — REGULATORY ROADMAP                                                                                                   1
Executive Summary
Overview
Legislative Requirements:
RCW 43.330.440(9) directs Commerce to: "submit a report on the outcomes of the projects to the
economic development committees of the legislature by January 15th of each calendar year, from
2015 through 2020. The department must include in the reports any streamlining recommendation
s identified in the projects that require statutory changes for implementation and any potentially
replicable models, approaches, and tools that could be applied to other sectors and geographical
areas.

Enacted in 2013, HB 1818 directed Commerce to lead partnerships of state agencies, local agencies,
businesses and nonprofits to streamline the business regulatory process. The legislation provides the
opportunity to improve the business experience of understanding and complying with regulatory
requirements that can be unclear, redundant or conflicting. For some time, the business community has
been requesting this type of multi-jurisdictional approach from the perspective of the business owner.

In collaboration with partner jurisdictions, Commerce has
piloted Regulatory Roadmaps for restaurant startups,
manufacturing siting feasibility and residential construction
since 2014. The pilots have presented solid learning
opportunities to help the agency and its partners understand
how to effectively provide regulatory information that will help
businesses efficiently navigate a sea of regulatory
requirements at the state, county and city level.

The initial concept entailed the production and use of
downloadable spreadsheets on city websites. These were time- and labor-intensive and did not lend
themselves to ready adoption of Regulatory Roadmaps by other jurisdictions. Anecdotal feedback
shows there is a demand for this type of streamlined roadmap at the county and city level, but these
"one-off" sites are difficult to resource, manage and update. The lack of standardization among
jurisdictions, as well as different web platforms, required extensive and often incomplete
customization.

To improve the experience and create some measure of scalability, Commerce started work in early
2018 on Regulatory Roadmap 2.0, an online portal that automates many of the processes found in the
spreadsheets.

Commerce partnered with Pierce County and the city of Sumner to launch the prototype as they had
interest, compatible technologies and available development resources. The Departments of Ecology,
Labor and Industries, Clean Air Agency, local fire departments, water utility companies, etc. provided
additional information and data streams. This new Manufacturing Regulatory Roadmap portal is
anticipated to roll out to the public in early 2020. Commerce anticipates maturing the functionality of
the portal over time so that jurisdictions across the state can use it.




 REGULATORY STREAMLINING — REGULATORY ROADMAP                                                          2
Key Findings or Highlights
   The portal incorporates multi-jurisdictional and multi-agency information in a single place for
   manufacturers looking to site a new facility or expansion (see screen capture elsewhere in this
   report).

   The Roadmap 2.0 portal creates a more predictable and efficient experience, removing much of the
   guesswork for businesses that want to grow and expand by allowing greater online access to
   regulatory requirements in a specific jurisdiction.

   The site is business-centric, putting business needs at the center of the process. It is based on what
   businesses need to accomplish and consider rather than focusing on the permitting and licensing
   process itself.

   Regulatory Roadmaps for specific industries have been guided by input from businesses and
   industry stakeholders to navigate regulatory requirements and create transparency. The new portal
   is designed to provide preliminary regulatory information to reduce costs and time and better
   prepare manufacturers for regulatory requirements that are likely to impact their siting decisions.

Conclusions
Commerce's goal is to reach larger segments of the business community, especially small businesses,
so they can access a single, authoritative place to understand and plan their projects. Successful
implementation will yield a competitive advantage for the state, providing assistance that does not
dilute regulatory requirements themselves. This will provide predictability and help businesses avoid
resubmissions and delays. Commerce will be able to judge success by site usage analytics, partner
feedback, and feedback from site users.

The key is to provide business tools from the perspective of the business owner that incorporate multi-
jurisdictional and multi-agency information in an easy-to-understand format, identifying regulatory
thresholds where possible. Commerce continues to collaborate with local and state governments as
well as businesses in developing this online portal to streamline the regulatory process while removing
redundancies and uncertainties.




 REGULATORY STREAMLINING — REGULATORY ROADMAP                                                         3
Introduction
Background
For the past several years, Commerce has been piloting Regulatory Roadmap navigation sites in
collaboration with businesses and regulatory agencies. Commerce received funding to develop the
Regulatory Roadmap pilots for 1) manufacturing site feasibility, 2) starting a restaurant and 3) starting
a residential construction business.

In 2014 and 2015, a partnership between the state, the City of Seattle and King County was established
to help restaurateurs navigate the requirements for starting a food service business. Based on the
success of this pilot, Commerce attempted to adapt the regulatory assistance tools and techniques
developed for the restaurant industry to other locales and sectors, including manufacturing.

Between 2016 and late 2018, Commerce expanded its Regulatory Roadmaps pilot into manufacturing
and construction, providing a set of tools to address specific pain points for these industries.


Pilot Roadmaps to Date:

Restaurant Startup
Roadmaps
   City of Seattle

   City of Spokane

   City of Spokane Valley

   City of Tacoma (partial)

Manufacturing Site
Feasibility Roadmaps
   City of Arlington

   City of Marysville

   City of Lynnwood

Residential Construction
Roadmap
   City of Kennewick


Through these pilots, it has become apparent that a different platform is necessary to make it possible
to scale across jurisdictions and industries while increasing operational efficiencies. Significant staff
resources at Commerce have been required to adapt each Regulatory Roadmap to a specific municipal
partner, in part because each city's regulatory environment is different and because the underlying
technologies used in the development of their websites vary widely.


 REGULATORY STREAMLINING — REGULATORY ROADMAP                                                          4
Update on the Regulatory Roadmap Program
What's Next?

Commerce's goal is to meet jurisdiction and business demand for Regulatory Roadmaps by developing
a more efficient application that can be launched easily for any jurisdiction or region. In its fully
operational form, the web-based portal will provide businesses with the ability to "test drive" different
jurisdictions so they can assess location-specific siting feasibilities within a single application. With
additional funding, jurisdictions would be able to update their regulatory environment through a back-
office feature on the portal, allowing Commerce to take on an administrator/manager role instead of
one focused on labor-intensive manual updates.

Known as Regulatory Roadmap 2.0, the portal is a partnership between Commerce and its launch
partners, Pierce County and the City of Sumner. Other jurisdictions in the county may become partners
following launch, depending on available staffing and resources.

Focused on manufacturing siting feasibility, the portal allows users to select a jurisdiction and type of
manufacturing use, which, in turn, displays regulatory requirements for that business type. The
prototype includes zoning maps that show allowable zones for specific types of manufacturing uses
and lays out additional considerations, tools and preliminary permitting information. This new
Roadmap portal is scheduled to be rolled out to the public in January 2020.

The next steps for the prototype include:

   Conduct user feedback to identify potential enhancement opportunities.

   Implement enhancement based on priority of business requirements from the manufacturing
   community and resource availability.

   Gather user analytics to identify additional improvements ensure information is regularly updated.

   Collaborate with partner jurisdictions and interested stakeholders to communicate the platform and
   its value proposition.




 REGULATORY STREAMLINING — REGULATORY ROADMAP                                                           5
   Exhibit 1: Screen Capture of the new online portal, which walks users through the steps: 1)
   identifying needs, 2) assessing area feasibility through use of interactive zoning map, 3) reviewing
   critical conditions, 4) identifying specific requirements of selected properties, 5) reviewing
   permitting needs and 6) next steps of providing additional resources.




Conclusion
Launch of Prototype
Commerce is excited to launch our web-based portal prototype in early 2020. With the launch, we will
be able to collect user analytics to make further adjustments based on user feedback and site
functionality.

The new portal is designed to be scalable across multiple jurisdictions throughout the state and for
multiple business use cases. Commerce staff has had the opportunity to work with the content of the
first two jurisdictions, refining the process accordingly. While the initial work to input a jurisdiction into
the system is still somewhat labor-intensive for Commerce staff, the hope is that as we learn more
about the way jurisdictions communicate their requirements to us, we will be able to streamline and
automate the content management processes further with appropriate resourcing. This includes a
sustainable shared-cost funding model, available staff at the partner level, additional funds to build self-
service capabilities into a back-office function and further market research and outreach to reach the
target audiences earlier in the site selection and permitting process.




 REGULATORY STREAMLINING — REGULATORY ROADMAP                                                              6


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