Maricopa County Government Planning & Development Dept - Phoenix, Arizona

On Track

If you make it hard for people to work with you to get permits they will continue to not get permits. Pretty simple concept that the government has lost track of.

If you want things done correctly then make the process fast and easy.

James Stephens

COMPLETE MORONS working in plan review... doing a simple detached RV garage, same way as we have done maybe 35-40 times in the past and all structural engineering included and the plans come back with a bunch of ridiculous items that are not even applicable and have never been asked for previously.

We have submitted two homes (IDENTICAL HOME PLAN SETS) in a row of new SPEC homes... only difference was they were on two different lots, but the homes were the same... reviews come back totally different... one asking for some things and the other review completely different things. The people working in plan review are on a power trip and do not even know what they are talking about!

John Egan

completely evil and corrupt to the core. this is exactly how a communist government works. zero accountability while taking your money the whole time. America deserves better than this.

Feather Proctor

All of the people I have worked with at the County P&D dept have provided excellent customer service! I have spoke with several people and everyone has spent time to listen, research, explain and help me accomplish what is needed. If the person I am talking to can't answer the question they put me in direct contact with the person who can. I really appreciate their knowledge and willingness to help me. I look forward to working with them in the future.

Paul Fick

I've been an architect for over 30 years, and dealt with many agencies through the Pandemic. I've never seen such lack of urgency and hiding behind a virtual wall. First, their ETA for reviewing a residential second submittal is over two weeks. The initial submittal was much longer. Second, the manager does not reply to two emails. You can't reach them directly, but employees take your call and send the email. I've now escalated to the person in charge of Planning and after that it's the County Supervisor's staff. I read the County reply that "customer service is important" That's what I read. That's not what I see. They know they're the only game in town. It just promulgates the stereotype of government employees. And my review wouldn't be as severe as my clients!

Donald Duck

I gave them a call, a woman picked up, clearly at home, I said it was hard to hear her and she hung up on me. Called back requesting a phone number because they had a contract in my neighborhood. She told me to google it to find the number. When I asked why she didn’t have a number she told me, “I already told you, you have to google it”. Don’t bother, they have zero accountability and no customer service.

Ryan Clark

So far, so good. Staff have been nice in person. (I work down the road from them. So stopping by to ask stupid questions is easy.) I applied for my permit to build a shop on my property. Everything has been easy for the most part so far. Only a day in and I already received a live response via email requesting a document. The reviews here from other people are terrible. That has not been my experience. Again, so far. I almost gave 4 stars because of their website. Getting from point “A” to point “B” is not intuitive, it’s unclear and also glitchy. I mentioned this to one of the employees there and they made the claim that it’s “not glitchy”. Well, maybe try sitting down with someone off the street and watch them try and get through the online permit process. You will see where the issues are.

Ron Fraser

I will start off by saying I was nervous about some poor reviews of this department, and also some stories that I had heard of long wait times for residential building permits. My custom home builder told me to expect the same. Rather than sit back and be annoyed, I got involved. I contacted the department, and found my way to their Ombudsman, a young lady by the name of Kathryn Garcia. Long story short, my building permit was issued in 51 days from first submittal, and that included one set of revisions and a re-submittal. Everyone at the Planning & Development Department, especially Kathryn Garcia, were kind, polite and did their job with the utmost of professionalism. With the increased building activity and Covid, I know all of these county agencies have been under great stress. These folks did a FANTASTIC job, and my thanks go out to everyone at the department and especially Kathryn Garcia. Job well done!