“To truly lower the cost of living, the city must start using automated compliance checks to approve housing, retrofit, and energy projects in real-time.”

A home under construction on Staten Island. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

On his first day in office, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the launch of the Streamlining Procedures to Expedite Equitable Development (SPEED), a task force to remove bureaucratic and permitting barriers that drive up costs and slow housing construction. Less than two weeks later, in her State of the State address, Gov. Kathy Hochul called for modernizing permitting systems across state agencies to help tackle the affordability crisis.

To truly lower the cost of living, the city must start using automated compliance checks to approve housing, retrofit, and energy projects in real-time—a move that would rapidly speed deployment and save New Yorkers money. 

The existing permitting process is broken. While many municipal departments allow permits to be submitted online, the actual review of those documents remains a painfully slow process with long wait times and unpredictable outcomes. Many permits are kicked back to the applicant to correct minor errors, often taking months to complete the entire process. For a homeowner trying to install a heat pump or solar panels, these delays act as a hidden tax, making essential clean energy upgrades more expensive and difficult than they should be. There is a better way! 

The future of construction and renovation lies in automated compliance and fast, if not instant, project approvals. New technology can perform this task on virtually any clean energy upgrade and residential retrofit with 100 percent accuracy. Unlike basic digital portals that just store and distribute files, automated compliance technologies verify that a project meets every rule as the application is being filled out and ensures that every submission is correct and complete the first time around, effectively acting as a project prescreening service. This shift allows for immediate verification, ensuring that project outcomes are predictable from day one.

Automating permitting technology is already delivering results in cities across California and Colorado. For example, the city of Bakersfield has adopted automated permitting for nine permit types, including solar panels, residential re-roofing, and water heaters, slashing the time required for plan review from several weeks to just a few seconds. And in Colorado, the administration has adopted a state-level permit submission platform, which allows instant permitting for projects in dozens of cities, providing builders and homeowners with real-time feedback that allows them to fix errors instantly rather than waiting weeks for a rejection letter. This standardized approach also removes the inconsistencies inherent in human interpretation, ensuring the law is applied consistently to every applicant.

The New York State Legislature is currently considering S5781, which would require automated permitting for residential solar projects in jurisdictions across the state. If enacted, this bill will help property owners save more than $2,000 on the cost of installing a new residential solar system and between $1,300-$2,300 on electricity bills each year. What’s more, automated permitting systems can be set up at no cost to local governments, making this a win-win policy decision. 

Passing this measure will be a vital step, and it is important that the law remains technology-agnostic to allow for constant improvement. By focusing on automated compliance rather than a specific software platform, the state can encourage a competitive market that delivers the best possible tools for New Yorkers.

New York City has the power to lead on this issue right now, even before state intervention. The Mamdani administration can integrate automated compliance into the city’s existing building systems today. Starting with high-volume and high-value projects like renewable energy retrofits would provide an immediate win for the climate and a blueprint for fixing the broader housing crisis. This is a practical, scalable way to make the city more affordable.

Ultimately, an affordability agenda is only as strong as the system that implements it. Moving to automated permitting is more than just a technical fix; it is a way to make the government work more effectively for the people it serves while ensuring our regulations help build a sustainable and affordable future rather than standing in the way. 

Patrick McClellan is the policy director at NY League of Conservation Voters. Leila Banijamali is CEO at Symbium.  

The post Opinion: Automated Permitting is Vital to the Mamdani’s Housing Agenda appeared first on City Limits.

MILAN, Italy  — Caroline Harvey and Joy Dunne each had a goal and two assists, Gwyneth Philips stopped 20 shots in her Olympic debut, and the United States defeated Switzerland 5-0 in the women’s hockey tournament on Monday.

Alex Carpenter, Hannah Bilka and Haley Winn also scored, and the Americans improved to 3-0 a day before the tournament favorites close their Group A preliminary round schedule against border rival Canada.

Captain Hilary Knight had two assists to increase her Olympic career point total to 31 — one short of matching the U.S. record set by Jenny Potter.

Canada faced Czechia later in the evening, a game in which the defending Olympic champion’s captain Marie-Philip Poulin did not return after limping off in the first period. It’s not clear if Poulin — nicknamed “Captain Clutch” for scoring three Olympic gold medal-clinching goals — will be available to play on Tuesday.

Philips’ shutout was shared by Ava McNaughton, who stopped one shot upon entering the game with under two minutes left. The U.S. has allowed just one goal in three outings and posted consecutive shutouts following Aerin Frankel’s 11-save outing in a 5-0 win over Finland on Saturday.

Switzerland dropped to 1-2 in being shut out for the second straight outing following a 4-0 loss to Canada on Saturday. Andrea Braendli was sharp in stopping 45 shots, including 35 of the first 37 she faced before the Americans scored three times on six shots over the first 7:42 of the third period.

Winn opened the scoring 6:04 in, by driving to the front of the net and redirecting in Harvey’s centering pass. Dunne score 5:52 into the second period by forcing a turnover behind the Swiss net and then banking in a shot off the skate of Switzerland defender Stefanie Wetli.

Philips made several big saves in the first period despite facing only six shots. She kicked out her left skate just in time to stop a shot from Ivana Wey in the opening minute. Some 12 1/2 minutes in, Philips got her glove up to foil Rahel Enzler, who was set up on the doorstep.

Host nation Italy secured a place in the quarterfinals for the first time by beating Japan 3-2.

Germany followed by claiming its spot in the next round with a 2-1 overtime win over France.

Both Italy and Germany improved to 2-1 and joined Sweden (3-0) in completing the three Group B nations to clinch a quarterfinal berth. Japan and France were eliminated from contention.

Italy advanced in just its second Olympic appearance, both as the host, after going 0-4 at the 2006 Turin Games and finishing last among the eight-team field.

“I think this is everybody’s dream coming true,” Italy’s Canada-born goalie Gabriella Durante said. “Hopefully this just grows hockey in Italia that much more for little girls all over the country.”

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By JOHN HANNA and ERIC GAY

EDINBURG, Texas (AP) — The first center for dispersing sterile screwworm flies from U.S. soil in decades opened Monday in Texas, part of a larger effort to keep the flesh-eating parasite they spawn from crossing the Mexican border and wreaking havoc on the American cattle industry.

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U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott unveiled the new facility on a former Air Force base near Edinburg, Texas. It will allow the U.S. to disperse millions of sterile male New World screwworm flies bred in Mexico or Panama on both sides of the border.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is building a new $750 million factory nearby for breeding sterile flies, but Rollins said construction on the fly factory won’t be done until the end of 2027. The USDA also is spending $21 million to convert a fruit fly breeding facility in far southern Mexico into one for breeding screwworm flies starting this summer.

The sterile male flies would mate with wild females, who mate only once in their weekslong adult lives. Their eggs, laid in open wounds or on mucous membranes, would then not hatch into the flesh-eating maggots that can infest livestock, wild mammals, household pets and even humans.

“It’s a real testament to the all hands on deck — federal state and local — the fact that we do not have the pest in our country yet,” Rollins said.

In November, the USDA opened a facility in Tampico in central Mexico for dispersing Panama-bred flies. However, it is about 330 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We knew we needed a short-term, gap-filling solution, which is exactly what we are cutting a ribbon on today,” Abbott said.

The Mexican cattle industry has been hit hard by New World screwworm fly larvae infestations, and the U.S. has closed the border since July to imports of cattle, bison and horses.

A similar program breeding sterile male flies had largely eradicated the pest from American soil by the early 1970s, except for a limited, short-lived outbreak in the Florida Keys in 2017 and its appearance recently when officials blocked a horse being imported from Argentina into Florida until the animal was fully treated, Rollins said.

The U.S. shut down its fly factories after eliminating the pest from its soil, and sterile males have been bred since in the Western Hemisphere only at a single facility in Panama, which can produce about 117 million a week. The new fly factory in Texas would be designed to produce 300 million a week.

The USDA also announced last month that it is offering up to $100 million in grants for projects designed to improve fly breeding, create new fly traps and lures, and produce treatments for infestations.

Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas.

The U.S. government is using unaccountable federal forces to violently suppress dissent and reinforce its power through force and fear. This behavior is designed to make the people feel powerless and the governing authority impenetrable. It may feel shocking in America today, but it’s a common approach used by repressive regimes around the world.

Pushing back on this is difficult and scary, but history has shown us how and under what circumstances citizens have built effective resistance. The good news is that the people across targeted U.S. cities have been doing just that.

When and how do social movements succeed against abusive governments? We have many historic examples to draw on.

Poland’s communist government brutally suppressed the Solidarity Movement during the 1980s as the country’s workers used protests, labor organizing and labor strikes to fight for rights and freedoms.

The 1980s saw a similar popular movement in Chile against Augusto Pinochet who had seized power in a military coup in 1973. Organized civil resistance grew, with regular protests involving widespread evening noise, honking horns and banging pots and pans in solidarity, and “lightning” protests that organized and dispersed quickly.

Students founded the Otpor movement in Serbia in 1998 to resist the regime’s repression of universities. Its focus soon shifted to ousting dictator Slobodan Milosevic, using mass demonstrations and a general strike across the provinces to make its point.

Each of these movements was met with violence and repression, with activists arrested in the thousands, beaten and harassed, but they continued resisting with nonviolence. Gradually, concessions were secured, culminating in elections that the violent regimes lost and ultimately conceded.

America’s own Civil Rights Movement tells the story and success of generations of resistance in the face of violent repression, but its leaders’ deep commitment to nonviolence and persistence won the support of the American public and political leadership and ultimately dismantled legal segregation and disenfranchisement.

None were quick successes, but all achieved remarkable outcomes. In recent years, experts have built databases to study hundreds of examples of civil resistance movements, and the outcomes reveal some lessons and trends.

Social mobilizations against governments tend to be most effective when they are nonviolent, align with public opinion, have media coverage and are ultimately supported by elite actors (business or political figures with influence on public opinion or government actors). These elements all help grow public support and pressure. Nonviolent movements are about twice as likely to succeed as violent ones.

Social media have enhanced the power of another useful tool: real-time video. Exposing government violence before the government sells a different story undermines support for and trust in the government, which in turn reinforces support for the social movement against it.

All of this plays into what Erica Chenoweth, an expert on political violence, calls the “ 3.5% rule,” which asserts that “no government has withstood a challenge of 3.5% of the population mobilized against it” at one time. This conclusion was based on analysis of over 300 movements since 1900. The study focuses on efforts to oust incumbent leaders and has exceptions, but the conclusion is broadly applicable: a movement that can generate this much active public support has a high chance of success.

For context, the most recent nationwide mobilization was the No Kings protest in October, with about 7 million participants, or about 2% of the U.S. population, and this happened well before federal forces killed two U.S. citizens in the streets. The response so far in targeted cities seems beyond the 3.5% threshold already.

Residents of Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis, which have each faced heavy-handed federal crackdowns, are showing us how this is done. They have deployed rapid-response networks of community groups and volunteers to witness, document and track aggressive federal officer activity in their cities. Their videos have turned American public opinion squarely against these operations and undercut the administration’s justifications for use of force. They have secured the support of big and small businesses.

The effort to do so continues. Just last week, protesters were arrested demonstrating at a Target in Chicago’s West Loop as they pressed Target stores to deny entry to immigration agents and call for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to leave Illinois and Minnesota.

Activist groups such as Indivisible have trained tens of thousands of people in nonviolent tactics. As federal agents try to scare and provoke, in a way that could easily undermine the cause, such training is essential to ensure peaceful protesters do not take the bait.

And it’s working. Los Angeles succeeded in ousting thousands of National Guard forces the administration had deployed to aggressively back up its immigration operation. Two weeks ago, U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino was stripped of leadership of the Minneapolis operation, and the Department of Homeland Security has announced that it is drawing down numbers of immigration officers there and would be issuing the remaining ones body cameras, a policy that gradually will be expanded nationwide. These are small but important concessions.

Ending this government repression will take a sustained and organized effort well beyond these cities. But if more Americans are ready to stand up with similar conviction, I have faith that the people will succeed.

Elizabeth Shackelford is a senior adviser with the Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune. She is also a distinguished lecturer with the Dickey Center at Dartmouth College. She was previously a U.S. diplomat and is the author of “The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age.”