Honolulu permitting department entering digital age with new software suite
New technology at the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting could make the city’s building permit process much shorter. With the changes, the permitting process for residential projects could take as little as two weeks. Commercial projects are estimated to take no longer than six months. HPR's Mark Ladao has more. New technology at the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting (DPP) is being introduced to streamline the city's building permit process. The department will introduce permitting software from Clariti, replacing the previous 26-year POSSE system. The new system will allow for quicker turnaround times and more efficient use of resources by staff. Applicants will be able to apply and pay online, and staff will have more tools to streamlight the review process. With the changes, the permitting process for residential projects could take as little as two weeks and commercial projects no longer than six months. The Clariti software and ProjectDox system were purchased with federal Fiscal Recovery Funds and cost $5.6 million and $206,000 respectively.
Publicados : 4 semanas atrás por Mark Ladao no Tech
New technology at the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting could make the city's building permit process much shorter.
DPP Director Dawn Apuna said this week that the department will introduce permitting software from the company Clariti to make the process fully digital.
The rollout for Clariti’s Community Development Software will take about 18 months, replacing DPP’s 26-year POSSE system, although some of the new software’s capabilities will be available earlier.
Applicants will be able to apply and pay online, and staff will have more tools to streamline the review process.
“The solution is a robust, flexible, and user-friendly permitting system designed to streamline and expedite permit processing and inspections and enforcement,” the city said in a news release.
The residential building permit process currently takes about six months on average, and over a year for commercial projects, according to a DPP presentation in January. The result is a delay in processing and a backlog of building permit applications.
Apuna said the new technology will allow quicker turnaround times and free up DPP staff to do building code reviews and other complex permitting work.
“The Clariti system, the software, it's just that the current system is so manual. And so just automating — like auto-populating areas and showing where your permit is — it's going to be huge. People won't need to call us to find out where their permit is — which takes up like half of our time — when they can just go online,” she said.
Last year DPP introduced two other technological changes to the building permit process, and both will improve this year.
With the changes, the permitting process for residential projects could take as little as two weeks. Commercial projects are estimated to take no longer than six months.
The ProjectDox system introduced last summer moved plan submissions online, which the department said set the stage for a fully electronic permitting experience. In the next six months, the system will be upgraded and later integrated with the Clariti system.
CivCheck is an artificial intelligence software company that uses its technology to simplify code compliance and plan reviews. The city is using it in the pre-screening phase for residential permits and is continuing the development and use of AI for code reviews.
“CivCheck’s technology uses artificial intelligence to streamline the permitting process by empowering applicants to evaluate permit plans before they submit and enabling cities to quickly verify compliance,” CivCheck CEO and co-founder Dheekshita Kumar said in a statement.
The Clariti software and ProjectDox system were paid for with federal Fiscal Recovery Funds, the city said, and cost $5.6 million and $206,000, respectively.
The CivCheck software is being implemented as part of an ongoing four-month pilot project with the city, which says comes at no cost.