How long ZRB cases take
The time from a zoning application being filed to its ZRB hearing, and on to a final City Council decision. Measured from milestone dates — when the case opened, when it was heard, when council acted — across essentially every case, so these are population figures, not a sample.
The pipeline, end to end
Median days for each leg. The last two cover the 1,169–1,212 cases that reach City Council (a ZRB case is bridged to its council paper by case ID).
| Leg | Median | Cases measured |
|---|---|---|
| Application filed → ZRB hearing | 65 days | 1,375 |
| ZRB hearing → Council decision | 61 days | 1,169 |
| Application filed → Council decision | 131 days | 1,212 |
Time to hearing, by case type
CDP (land-use amendments) run slower because they are heard on a fixed quarterly schedule; the rest track closely.
| Case type | Cases | Heard | Median to hearing | 90th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rezoning | 756 | 99% | 63 days | 83 days |
| CDP | 329 | 96% | 83 days | 129 days |
| Special use | 274 | 99% | 65 days | 87 days |
| MRPA | 45 | 98% | 65 days | 79 days |
Does timing predict outcome?
Before the hearing, no: cases reach the ZRB in ~65 days whether the board ends up approving, denying, or filing them — the pre-hearing wait is set by the scheduling calendar, not the merits. The signal is after the hearing, at council.
Time from hearing to the council decision, by outcome
| Council outcome | Median | 90th pct. | Cases |
|---|---|---|---|
| Approved | 60 days | 187 days | 945 |
| Denied | 74 days | 165 days | 45 |
| Filed / withdrawn | 112 days | 578 days | 167 |
Council clears what it passes quickly and drags on what it kills — approvals in about two months, denials nearer three and a half. The filed/withdrawn tail (90th percentile 578 days) is inflated by cases that die administratively rather than by vote, so the median is the honest figure there.
Deferral tracks with limbo, not a verdict
A case heard more than once isn't headed for denial so much as for no resolution: deferred cases are approved less often and left undecided more.
| Approved | Still undecided | Cases | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heard once | 51% | 38% | 1,106 |
| Deferred (heard 2+) | 37% | 58% | 273 |
Who administers the process
Cases are advanced through Accela by staff of the Office of Zoning & Development and outside review agencies. The city publishes a title for two leads; everyone else is a line reviewer the public directory doesn't name.
- Keyetta M Holmes — Director, Office of Zoning & Development (Zoning Administrator) (OZD) · signs 7,706 steps across 893 cases
- Jessica Lavandier — Assistant Director for Land Use and Brownfields (OZD) · signs 1,343 steps across 207 cases
- Plus 26 more line staff and external reviewers (Watershed Management, ATLDOT traffic, GIS, advertising, …), none individually named by the city.
A signed step records who signed a workflow action, not who did the underlying work: the Zoning Administrator's signature appears across most of the pipeline as a routine act of the office. Staffing levels are not visible in this data.
A note on the data
Accela also records a date on every internal workflow step, but clerks bulk-stamp many steps with one signature when closing a finished case (555 cases, 58% of dated steps), so per-step timings would be an administrative artifact. This page deliberately avoids them and measures only the three milestone dates above, which are recorded independently and are not affected.