The D.C. Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to override Mayor Muriel Bowser’s veto of a bill that splits up the oft-criticized Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs into two separate agencies, a move that lawmakers will now have to find the money for.

Bowser vetoed the bill last month, saying the measure was ill-conceived, too expensive, and would split up the sprawling agency— which handles everything from building permits to business licenses — just as it has started improving. In recent years she has pledged to overhaul of the agency, which has bedeviled multiple mayors and attracted negative attention with stories of spotty housing inspections and failures to enforce consumer protection laws.

Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, who wrote and shepherded the bill, told his colleagues last week that the changes at the agency aren’t happening fast enough. “DCRA has not shown marked improvements in the handling of plan reviews, illegal construction, or housing code violations,” he wrote. During Tuesday’s legislative session, lawmakers voted without discussion or dissent to override Bowser.

Still, Mendelson’s vision to break up DCRA into two new agencies — one to handle building permits and inspections, the other business licensing and consumer protection — is far from becoming a reality. An independent assessment puts the four-year cost of the breakup at $33 million, and the city continues to face a tighter budget due to the pandemic’s impact on the economy.

“I recognize this will take time, but starting now means it would happen sooner,” Mendelson said Monday.

The council also voted to override another of Bowser’s vetoes. Last month, Bowser vetoed a bill to create an independent ombudsman’s office in the city’s public child welfare agency. Bowser had said the office wasn’t necessary and could pose separation-of-powers problems, an argument rejected by many advocates and the usually Bowser-friendly editorial board of The Washington Post.

In her six years in office, Bowser has been sparing with her vetoes, only outright rejecting five measures sent her by the council. In all but one of those cases, though, lawmakers voted to override her.