The second-most populous city in Ohio has become one of the latest municipalities to launch an online permitting portal, technology that is helping to drive recent growth in the business of government technology.
Cleveland used technology from Accela, which sells permitting and other software to local and state governments, to build the city’s new Permit Portal.
Earlier this month, Accela announced its acquisition of GIS tech firm Novotx, reflecting a desire to build what amounts to an online one-stop shop for permitting and public works. Last year, Accela bought ePermitHub, whose technology allows for streamlined document management and plan review.
According to Accela, Cleveland’s newest gov tech tool gives those seeking permits access to “a unified, mobile‑friendly experience for submitting applications, uploading plans, paying fees and tracking the status of requests across multiple city departments.”
The portal also combines what the company called “previously fragmented workflows into a centralized, transparent system.”
The portal cost the city $1.15 million, said Sally Martin O’Toole, Cleveland’s director of building and housing, via an email interview with Government Technology.
That total includes $950,000 for annual citywide permit software licensing based on population — Cleveland has about 364,000 residents — along with $200,000 for additional software licensing that covers such areas as zoning and reporting.
Besides the financial costs involved, development of the tool “required close collaboration across many departments and technical teams” along with “vast resources” for testing, and prelaunch comments from users that helped to reduce technical issues, she said.
Catching up with the latest technology isn’t always easy, she said, as “technical debt” takes time to overcome.
“Construction permitting in Cleveland has been difficult to navigate for far too long,” she said. “Simplifying the complexity of navigating the construction permitting process and making Cleveland move at the speed of business is essential to fulfilling the promise of Mayor [Justin] Bibb’s Cleveland ERA agenda and creating a vibrant two-waterfront city is what our residents and stakeholders deserve.”
ERA refers to Economic Resurgence in Action, a sprawling plan that calls for property redevelopment, airport improvements, affordable housing, street repairs and other programs. Bibb wants to spur development along Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River — that is, the two waterfronts.
Permitting reform stands as one of the foundations of the broader effort. So do business recruitment and building a citywide integrated tech platform for “real-time project management” and other tasks.
Success of the new portal will not only involve its role in supporting the mayor’s vision but feedback from permit seekers and city staff, according to Martin O’Toole. Kiosks and online feedback forms will help with that.
“This effort, coupled with evaluating internal performance metrics, such as the amount of time projects spend waiting on the city in various statuses, and average amount of time for different review processes, should provide a comprehensive view into the success of the new process,” Martin O’Toole said. “Our customers and stakeholders are not shy about letting us and the world at large know about their feelings about the construction permitting process.”
As people get used to the new permitting portal, city staff are already thinking about new features.
They could include AI-powered search and chatbots — artificial intelligence is quickly taking on more of the permitting load across the country — and an “enhanced dashboard,” she said. “We plan to improve the address search functions using GIS rather than the field search.”
