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It’s no secret that Steamboat Springs’ construction industry is in a deep slump. And if you’ve followed the few development permit applications for new building projects in the city approval process this year, you might have formed the impression that the developers are willing to test the boundaries of what city officials will allow.

While we are not in favor of city officials giving away the ’Boat just to stimulate employment and spending, we are impressed with a couple of initiatives city staff and Steamboat Springs City Council members have made recently to help developers tackle new projects in an exceptionally difficult economic climate.

First, the city has pushed to pare down the amount of time it takes for the Routt County Regional Building Department to issue building permits. City Council member Bart Kounovsky has been advocating the purchase of software that would allow city department leaders, who must sign off on building permits, to conduct those reviews simultaneously rather than handing them off from office to office. More recently, the Steamboat Springs Planning Department has begun a pilot program to test a new “conceptual review” of development permits intended to put developers in a stronger position when they go to lenders for start-up dollars. The process is being tested on a proposal to redevelop the Ptarmigan Inn into a 10-story condominium building.

City Planning Director Tyler Gibbs said that discussions about the conceptual review process already were under way at the city when he assumed his role here one year ago but that it was familiar to him from his experience in the Denver area.

Gibbs said the new conceptual review process would result in a vote by appointed and elected officials on some basic but important aspects of the project — building density, building mass and preliminary site plans, for example.

That differs from the current “pre-application process,” which does not result in a vote by public officials. Instead, it only provides feedback and identifies areas of concern. The conceptual process would allow developers to go to lending institutions with a clear signal that the local government tentatively has approved the basics of the project. Developers still would have to go through a rigorous series of public hearings, but they’d have a better idea of where they stand.

Gibbs said the conceptual process also lets developers know they are on target before they invest considerable money in more detailed engineering drawings, for example.

The location of the proposed Ptarmigan Inn project in the urban renewal area at the resort village means that if the project were built — and we know that’s a big if — it would provide another increment of property tax funding for the ongoing improvements to public facilities at the ski base.

If the project developers prove they can live up to city standards and gain a final development permit, the project could exemplify the intent of the urban renewal authority — investing public funds in public infrastructure to stimulate private-sector investments in the heart of our resort community.

We support the city’s open-mindedness in looking for ways to facilitate responsible development while we travel the long path to economic recovery.