With the snip of a super-size pair of scissors, Mayor Martin O'Malley cut the ribbon yesterday on a new "one-stop shop" for city permits that he said will reduce the bureaucratic delays that builders complain discourage construction in the city.

The renovated $450,000 offices in the city's Housing Department at 417 E. Fayette St. will reduce the time required to get permits approved by up to three weeks, city housing officials said at a news conference.

The process was so long and convoluted, developers used to hire "expediters" -- consultants -- to walk building permit applications from cubicle to cubicle, office to office and building to building.

Now, the simplest permits -- such as those for minor renovations or decks -- will be handled rapidly, over the counter in the new, computerized application center, said Housing Commissioner Paul T. Graziano.

More complex permits -- for large construction projects -- will take 15 to 25 days for approval, down from the 25 to 40 days they used to take, Graziano said.

"It used to take 38 pages to explain how to get a building permit in the city. The red tape was bad," said O'Malley. "We need to get the government out of the way ... so that private dollars can rebuild this city. Baltimore is open for business once again."

James Riepe, vice chairman of the T. Rowe Price investment management firm in the city, said he had heard many complaints about the slowness of the city's bureaucracy when he served three years ago as co-chair of O'Malley's transition advisory committee on economic development matters.

Riepe said he is glad that O'Malley is following through with a recommendation to create the "one-stop" permit processing center. "He is breaking through the bureaucracy, and I give him credit for this," Riepe said.

O'Malley, whose wife had the couple's fourth child in October, drew laughs from the crowd of about 60 city employees packed in the newly renovated, yellow-and-gray offices yesterday when he pretended to apply for a permit to build an addition to his home for a "much-needed nursery."