As Mayor of New Leaf, you have access to a number of different powers and are able to make decisions for the benefit of your neighbors and village. But before you are able to do the really cool stuff you need one very important thing; a development permit.
The development permit is obtained achieving 100% approval rating from the residents of your town and then submitting an application for the permit. How to get this approval rating? Read on below!
For more help on Animal Crossing: New Leaf, read our Fish, Bugs and Diving Guide
There are a number of tasks you can perform that will boost your rating. Most of these are basically public services and Isabelle helps you figure out what to do if you talk to her. The things you can do are as follows:
- Get involved with the residents (talk to them, help them out etc).
- Donate fossils, fish, and bugs to the museum.
- Pull weeds.
- Water flowers.
- Design a new town flag.
- Compose a new town theme song.
- Write messages on the bulletin board.
- Sell items at Re-Tail.
- Fish up garbage from ponds, rivers, and the sea, and then recycle it at Re-Tail.
All of these actions contribute to improving your approval rating and as soon as it hits 100 talk to Isabelle to send the application right away. Once you have your permit it cannot be revoked, no matter how much your rating falls.
Now that you have your permit, you can start using your Mayoral powers to their full effect. The two major things you can do are enacting ordinances, and starting public works.
Ordinances are basically laws that you sign off. There are four to choose from and each provides different benefits. You can only have one Ordinance active at any one time:
- Early Bird – Shops open earlier and citizens wake up at dawn. This ordinance is a must if you only have time to play early in the morning.
- Night Owl – Shops stay open long into the dark of the night and citizens tend to get out and socialize around midnight. Perfect if you only have time to play at night.
- Bell Boom – Boosts town economy. Allows you to buy and sell for more than usual.
- Keep Your Town Beautiful – Stops your flowers from wilting, prevents trash from appearing, and restricts the growth of weeds.
Lastly we have Public Works. This is basically just a fancy way of saying that you get to decide what gets built, and where. Talk to Isabelle to get a project started (whether it’s a bridge or a fountain or whatever) and she will ask you to show her the place where you want to place it. Take her there and depending on whether it is a valid location, she will call in Lloid the town Gyroid to begin collecting funds for construction.
Funds will be collected automatically as your citizens and neighbors hand in donations to the project but it’ll be slow going. Therefore it’s probably a good idea to delve into your own pockets to finance the venture. Construction will usually take no more than a day after the funds are met and there will be a celebration being held at the site that you can choose to attend afterwards.
