Granting the Permission to Create Project Sites without giving Full Control

Symptoms:

User wants certain people to be able to create Project sites without giving the user Full Control permissions or adding them to the Owners Group.

Resolution:

Create a new Permission Level and SharePoint Group.

Creating a new Permission Level:

1. Navigate to the site root
2. Click Site Actions -> Site Settings
3. Click Site permissions
4. In the SharePoint ribbon, click Permission Levels
5. On the Permission Levels page, click Add a Permission Level
6. Give the Permission Level an appropriate name (like Create Projects)
7. Under Site Permissions, tick the Create Subsites box. This will also automatically add other required permission levels.
8. Click Create

Creating a new SharePoint Group

1. Navigate to the site root
2. Click Site Actions -> Site Settings
3. Click Site permissions
4. In the SharePoint ribbon, click Create Group
5. Give the SharePoint group an appropriate name
6. Under Give Group Permissions to this site, select the Permission Level you created previously.
7. Click Create

Once you have created the group, add the users you want to allow to create sites to the new group, in addition to their current group.
Users will also need read permissions to the Template areas in order to create Projects.