What is the process for getting an Incidental Take Permit?
While field office personnel provide you detailed guidance throughout the process, development of an HCP is driven by the applicant’s schedule. The applicant is in charge of deciding whether to pursue a permit and who will assist in planning. Personnel from the FWS are there to give you technical and procedural guidance and to process applications. The necessary components of a completed permit application are: a standard application form and the HCP. The length of time to complete the permitting process depends on the complexity of issues involved, the completeness of the documents submitted by the applicant, and the willingness of the applicant to work with the FWS to resolve the details of the HCP process. Once a completed application is forwarded to the FWS’s Regional Office, the typical processing time to issuance/denial of the application is about 100 days. Small, non-controversial applications have been processed in as little as 70 days.
