Avoid the Negative Media of Inefficient Permitting Processes

All too often we read news reports about frustrated applicants who have faced delays or experienced a bad service securing a permit for their construction project. Local newspapers feature stories of homeowners waiting months for simple renovation permits, or small business owners watching construction costs skyrocket due to plan review delays. These stories sting because they are a result of overly complex, lengthy processes, or roadblocks in the submission process, and they do not reflect the dedication that government agency workers bring to serving their communities. 

So how do agencies mitigate to improve community perception, and ensure that they get recognition for the public service that they are committed to? Let’s take a closer look. 

Delivering for Your Community 

It seems simplistic to say efficient processes, increased visibility, and enhanced collaboration are all that’s needed — but it really is that simple. Focusing on systems that increase the data flow across your organization makes a fundamental shift in maximizing the resources you have within your departments. 

Plan review is an extremely critical function for the approval of a permit. Paper-based workflows or non-purpose-built markup tools are often the cause of delays. Multiple departments must be involved in a wide variety of assessments, which requires back and forth between departments, or the agency and the applicant, to resolve issues. 

Without an effective purpose-built plan review solution, the review is slow and adds a significant delay to delivering for the applicant, despite your agency’s best efforts. Paper plans review processes are laden with versioning issues, or the cumbersome passing of plans from one department to another. PDF tools are not purpose-built and rely too heavily on emails, which can easily be overlooked in busy inboxes, or lack the transparency and audit trail needed to know who has signed off on what elements. 

Others rely on markup tools not built for the pressures of plan review, which creates overly complex processes with poor workflow management. At Avolve, we specialize in solutions that enhance efficiency and offer streamlined processes, so your citizens experience a fast, clearly understood and transparent service. 

Track Your Plan Review at Every Stage 

With a purpose-built electronic plan review solution, agencies can track review cycles with clear visibility. This makes it possible to monitor delays and provide the insight to improve processes in the future. Reviewers can also reconcile conflicting comments before they are passed back to the applicants – all increasing the review service and speed for the applicant. 

Applicants feel informed and in control. Submission guided by unique Avolve AI Submit speeds up the initial review, ensuring issues are captured and resolved. And no more sending their application off to be approved and not quite knowing when it will come back, or unsure at what stage in the review it is at. The latest status can be viewed across the organization, so staff can monitor applications at every step of the workflow to ensure they keep moving forward and keep applicants informed. 

Plan review functionality is at the core of delivering for your city or county’s citizens and businesses. Do away with the bad press and local government frustrations and start owning your own narrative of a thriving and developing community.