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Reason #1 to be 100% paperless with online on permit applications

jar546

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This is an absolutely true story(zero exaggeration), and I have several very similar to this one.

A homeowner is giving one of my permit technicians a very hard time and demands to speak with the building official which is me. This is how the conversation went when I picked up the phone:

Owner: You people are holding up my renovation. I want to know what the problem is. My contractor submitted his paperwork over a month ago and has not heard back from the town at all. Why are you taking so long?

Me: Ma'am, I am sorry to hear that. Can you please give me your address? What type of work are you having done?

Owner: (gives me address) We are getting our kitchen and two bathroom remodeled. You know we have company scheduled to come and now the contractor doesn't think he can finish it time because of your delays.

Me: Ma'am, what is the name of your contractor?

Owner: (gives me the name of the contractor)

Me: Ma'am, just so you know, your contractor just signed up on our system and started filling out the permit 46 minutes ago for the first time. There are 7 required documents to upload and so far they have uploaded 1 of the 7 required documents. They are just filling it out and have not officially even submitted it to us yet.

Owner: Silence

Me: Ma'am, are you still there.

Owner: He told me he dropped off the paperwork over a month ago.

Me: Ma'am, we don't accept paperwork over the counter and even if we did, we would have to input it into the system. I am sorry but I think you need to have a conversation with your contractor. They are not even registered with the town as a contractor yet and like I said, just started the application 46 minutes ago. Ma'am you have a contractor problem, not a building department problem. I don't know why he would tell you that he applied for a permit over a month ago, when, in-fact, he has not. Our system keeps an audit log of every time a contractor or we log into the system and change something in the online application. Forty-six minutes ago he logged in as (I gave her his email address) at exactly 13:04 today.

Owner: How long will this take once he is done uploading everything.

Me: Ma'am that depends on whether or not all of his paperwork is correct. Hold on one second. (I then look at the application he uploaded) Ma'am I am looking at the actually application he submitted and you did not sign it as required and it is not notarized so our front office staff will be rejecting it. You may want to go over the paperwork with your contractor before he submits anything else incorrectly.

Owner: Thank you for your help. I will call him now.

You see in the past, we would have spend time looking around for the missing application that we never actually got. This is why I love this system. Another great thing is that we track the amount of time we wait to hear back from a contractor so it is nice to be able to report to an owner that so far the application has been in the processing state for 32 days. Two of those days were waiting for us to review and 30 of those days were waiting for the contractor to reply to a deficiency notice.
 
when I first started in this office my first policy decision was that everting received was date stamp, play out the similar discussion with a customer who insisted that the permit application had been in the office for a month, it had been here a week, the rest of the office was amazed
 
Love the story and totally agree. My big take-away from the story is accountability, which is sorely lacking. Now you can see not only when, but who did what they did and why. I have many similar stories.

The only problem is that many AHJ's I work with implemented a system for which they had inadequate training, and in most (if not all) cases bought into a software with limitations and/or no idea how to utilize it effectively. This is slowly changing for the better as people recognize the benefits like the one you just recounted and start to see the systems as a tool to make their jobs better instead of a hassle. I have always preached "document, document, document" which did no good if nobody could find the documentation. Electronic permitting is making that a lot easier.
 
Digital submissions is the way to go.
The amount of paper and printing costs wasted on submissions and revisions is staggering.
 
As a counter (no pun intended) story, I did a very simple smoothie shop interior TI in a small town two years ago. The owner (my client) walked it in with all of the paperwork filled out and paid the plan check fees. After a month she went back in to see why we had not heard back at all, and the tech at the counter claimed that it had never been submitted! My client pointed behind the tech at a roll of plans sitting in plain view on a desk, and said "Really?!?! Those are my plans sitting right there!" The town then had the audacity to take another two weeks to plan check them .. with only very minor comments!
 
Oh do I feel the pain, with 20+/- municipalities this is a daily occurrence.

To have paperless submissions is a dream of mine. As a Third Party our issue is having numerous municipalities with varying permit application. Can it be done while having numerous municipalities, yes and no. Yes by consolidating information into one giant form or break out each municipality separately. No because it seems municipalities have a difficult time releasing power or expanding opportunity for the betterment of the process.

I’ve always had the attitude to work with the municipalities that want this and other may at some point down the road. So far i guess I’ve not provided adequate persuasion.
 
As a counter (no pun intended) story, I did a very simple smoothie shop interior TI in a small town two years ago. The owner (my client) walked it in with all of the paperwork filled out and paid the plan check fees. After a month she went back in to see why we had not heard back at all, and the tech at the counter claimed that it had never been submitted! My client pointed behind the tech at a roll of plans sitting in plain view on a desk, and said "Really?!?! Those are my plans sitting right there!" The town then had the audacity to take another two weeks to plan check them .. with only very minor comments!
Yet another reason to be 100% online and paperless. This does not happen.
 
Oh do I feel the pain, with 20+/- municipalities this is a daily occurrence.

To have paperless submissions is a dream of mine. As a Third Party our issue is having numerous municipalities with varying permit application. Can it be done while having numerous municipalities, yes and no. Yes by consolidating information into one giant form or break out each municipality separately. No because it seems municipalities have a difficult time releasing power or expanding opportunity for the betterment of the process.

I’ve always had the attitude to work with the municipalities that want this and other may at some point down the road. So far i guess I’ve not provided adequate persuasion.
This was the issue I had when I owned a PA 3rd party agency. Multiple municipalities. There are options that you can put in place to make this happen by purchasing your own software and inputting the parcel control numbers yourself or not requiring a PCN for upload. There are options and once you give access to those in the municipality that oversee your account they will love it. So much time and gas wasted running around picking up permit apps. If your 3rd party does not use one, it is because they chose not to. There are a ton of companies that can help you.
 
Yet another reason to be 100% online and paperless. This does not happen.
Exactly. Our system puts the plans in a queue as they are submitted and the plans examiners take them out on a first come, first served basis. This can then also be used as proof that the office isn't showing anyone favoritism if needed, which can be useful if you need to defend how a project was handled.
 
You make people get their applications notarized? never herd of that. Is that a state law?
In my County, you have to prove ownership via ORIGINAL deed. Not a Deed of Trust, the original.

For my shop permit, I submitted the Quit Claim Deed that transferred the property to us 24 years prior.

Seems like looking at their own property tax records would be more efficient means to prove ownership.............
 
Two problems with 100% paperless.
1) This is not responsive to the less sophisticated applicant. It should still be possible to submit an application on paper.
2) On a project with large sheets and multiple sheets of drawings 100% paperless means the plan checker is limited to looking at one sheet at a time on the monitor. In practice this means the checker can only look at one part of a sheet at a time. This will limit the checkers ability to flip between drawing and understand the drawings. I was an early adopter of CAD and computers in general. Being limited to viewing the drawings on a computer screen limits what you can see and thus the quality of your checking effort.

This policy may have advantages but there are also disadvantages.
 
2) On a project with large sheets and multiple sheets of drawings 100% paperless means the plan checker is limited to looking at one sheet at a time on the monitor. In practice this means the checker can only look at one part of a sheet at a time. This will limit the checkers ability to flip between drawing and understand the drawings
You are way, way behind the times and obviously not familiar with Bluebeam, the overlay capabilities, and the fact that most plan checkers now utilize 2-3 large computer screens at a time. Not only can I look at 2-3 sheets at a time but I can also overlay them on top of each other.

Being limited to viewing the drawings on a computer screen limits what you can see and thus the quality of your checking effort.
Yeah, you are practically in medieval times with your knowledge of today's software and just how far we've come. You don't know what you don't know.
 
No way is my 3rd party inspection company is going to spend any money on this and then teach a bunch of seniors to use it. Also the company requires us to log in everytime if no action on our small laptops every 5 minutes which is a pain.
 
No way is my 3rd party inspection company is going to spend any money on this and then teach a bunch of seniors to use it. Also the company requires us to log in everytime if no action on our small laptops every 5 minutes which is a pain.
We have a lot more retirees here; I am pretty much in a retirement community. Give senior folks a bit more credit. Over 2-1/2 years paperless and it is working perfectly fine.
 
Two problems with 100% paperless.
1) This is not responsive to the less sophisticated applicant. It should still be possible to submit an application on paper.
2) On a project with large sheets and multiple sheets of drawings 100% paperless means the plan checker is limited to looking at one sheet at a time on the monitor. In practice this means the checker can only look at one part of a sheet at a time. This will limit the checkers ability to flip between drawing and understand the drawings. I was an early adopter of CAD and computers in general. Being limited to viewing the drawings on a computer screen limits what you can see and thus the quality of your checking effort.

This policy may have advantages but there are also disadvantages.
I remember arguments just like this when old-school photojournalists balked at digital photography.

1) How many phone systems will respond to a rotary phone? How many one-hour film processing shops can you find on short notice? Times change. Put a terminal in the application office, and a tutorial. Problem solved.

2) Not so. Multiple ways to skin that cat. I have a laptop that drives a 27" wide monitor. I can dual-screen, split screen and if I *really* want an overlay, I can crack open GIMP or InDesign and create a varied-transparency series of overlays. I can *literally* look at any floor superimposed over another to determine transfer of loads, or continuity of earthquake bracing panels, turning visibility of layers on or off as I go - the digital equivalent of lining up the floor plan of the fourth storey over the floor plan of the first story, and then flipping the paper back and forth to see if something lines up, except faster and vastly more accurate.

Going to really call out the phrase "Being limited to viewing the drawings on a computer screen limits what you can see and thus the quality of your checking effort." That's totally false. I can measure to quite discrete accuracy on a digital plan, limits I can't achieve on a paper plan.

I ceased using paper two years ago, after spending more than an hour calculating exit paths/exit widths/exit distances for an addition to a large but relatively simple, one-storey structure. Then I got the digital plan, and was able to achieve the same feat using free .pdf software in less than five minutes. Not only that, I can create a copy of a file with all the exit path distances built-in to a .pdf. That way, when a designer wants to park a wall where a wall didn't use to be, it takes mere seconds to figure out if that wall puts exit distances beyond what code allows: all I have to do is cut and paste all the old exit path lines and "paste in place" on the new document(s) and simply alter/re-do the affected paths. Helluva lot simpler than fudging around with a pencil and a scale ruler all over again.

Another plus: if there are deficiencies in a plan, I can perform distance calculations, leave measurements in, add comments and kick things back to the designer so the designer knows *exactly* what the issue is, and where.

The idea of carrying six different bulky sets of plans to do six commercial inspections in a day .... egad. I can carry my computer with me, anywhere on a job site, pull up a plan, zero in on a floor space or detail, and do so easily. Try that with 60 pages of full-size plans.
 
I have counter staff that help with submission on paperless......we even have a dummy email set up for the few folks left that don't use email, they just don't get alerts...
 
Paperless sounds great on paper until you are standing at the front counter with someone in a conversation just like this one:

Me: Sir you need to submit the proposal along with the permit application and plans.

Owner: I already gave you all of that.

Me: No, you gave me the permit application and the plans. Your application states $10,000 for the work. I can't accept this submittal because we need all of the information prior to accepting the submittal. You are missing the proposal for the $10,000.

Owner: Thats going to take too much time I have to get this started.

Me: Actually, all you need to do is take all of this information with you back home. Scan it into your computer and then send it back to us via email along with the proposal.

Owner: <Silence>.................................

Me: Sir?

Owner: I don't know how to email. I don't use it.

Me: <crickets chirping in the background type silence>........................ Ok, well then, your right, its going to take a little more time since you will need to bring it all back in with you.


This was my conversation I had with a 40 something year old white male who appeared to me to have been born right here in the chicagoland area.

And he is not alone as I have found out over the last 10 months. We have a certain religious group who do not appear to be all that tech savy. I have tried to explain this to the board but they all still want to go paperless. We are transiitoning by May of 2023.
 
No reason why the contractors can't handle all of the submissions like they do anyway. There are an abundance of cheap scanners and free phone apps that allow conversion to PDF. This is not rocket science. It has become the norm so you kinda have to roll with the punches. If you don't want to, there is a lot of land in rural states you can live off the grid.
 
Paperless sounds great on paper until you are standing at the front counter with someone in a conversation just like this one:
[...]

And he is not alone as I have found out over the last 10 months. We have a certain religious group who do not appear to be all that tech savy. I have tried to explain this to the board but they all still want to go paperless. We are transiitoning by May of 2023.

We have people right now who can't fill out a paper form worth beans. What about the illiterate?
And you argument works both ways: persons with visual impairments may not be able to fill out paper forms at all, but may be able to fill out digital forms?
I wouldn't make paperless keyed to email, FWIW.
 
There has been many responses from plan checkers but nothing from inspectors. How do inspectors like being paperless....and not just plans but also permits,,,,and let's not forget the correction slip that became digital as well?

After I retired from LA County I did a few inspections for a third-party company ...in a few cities. Paperless cities. In one city, all I was given was the address....I didn't even know what the inspection was for. Plans on an IPad is a cruel hoax.
 
There has been many responses from plan checkers but nothing from inspectors. How do inspectors like being paperless....and not just plans but also permits,,,,and let's not forget the correction slip that became digital as well?

After I retired from LA County I did a few inspections for a third-party company ...in a few cities. Paperless cities. In one city, all I was given was the address....I didn't even know what the inspection was for. Plans on an IPad is a cruel hoax.

I do both. I find taking a computer in the field ridiculously easy. Also, way easier to email a report than print....
And in our system, the same individual generally does plans reviews and field inspections.
 
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