In short, yes, the construction industry, broadly speaking, be it non-residential or residential, has done a great deal of advocacy work at all levels of government to speed up the process, to eliminate the approval process and to make it more efficient—to get rid of the paper burden, if you will, and whatnot. That goes on.
The reality, though, is that the approval process.... Depending on where you are, there are some people who just don't want things to get built, period, end of story. They see things getting built as a negative, not as a positive, whether it's commercial facilities or residential. This NIMBY theory of “not in my backyard” is still around, and it doesn't help.
The industry has done, and continues to do, a great deal of advocacy work at all levels of government to make the approvals process much easier. Having said that, it's not getting less expensive. The approval process, the permits that are needed, the money that's required, and the per-unit costs—whether it's a multi-unit facility or a single dwelling—just keep going up and up, and you have the levels of government that are depending on those fees to do what they do. They see it as a cash cow, as opposed to delaying the immediate cash they get from the developer and then getting it later on in having the housing or the commercial establishments built and getting the tax base there. They want the fees up front. Yes, the industry has done a lot of work and will continue to do so. What will get done in the next 10 years remains to be seen.