[thereisnospork]

Pretty much. The discretionary nature of permitting, and other add-ons like CEQA, pose an enormous, and worse, unpredictable, burden on attempting to start a business in many places.

It'd be one thing if the requirements were merely onerous, but the discretionary nature adds corruption greatly favoring incumbents, the deep pocketed, and those willing to disregard the rules (start-ups with low capital requirements).

Never mind the timeline of these processes. Permitting can take 18-24 months, as can items like basic utility upgrades (adding 480V service, for instance, to an existing building can be an 18 month ~quarter million dollar endeavor.)

[cucumber3732842]

The permitting authority gets to pretend like it's not discretionary because the process has some "if we exercise out discretion to say no at this point then you sue us" thing to it that only megacorps with a legal team can afford to use