Weekly Report – December 30, 2023

A 2023 update on the City’s online permitting system: A “win” for our residents

Normandy Park’s online permitting system, SmartGov, has had a successful first full year for our customers and community stakeholders. Streamlining the permitting process online, including application and document submittal, payments, review, revisions, and integrated inspections, has resulted in significant efficiency in Normandy Park’s permit process system. Here is some information on how everything is working.

Application Intake

Applications made in 2023 outpaced 2022’s record year—658 to 575, respectively. This is the total of SmartGov online permit applications and our traditional paper “in-house” system. More to the point, 77 percent of those permit applications were made in SmartGov—a rapid and significant shift away from the paper system.

Permit Issuance

SmartGov’s efficiency in processing, reviewing, and issuance of permit applications has resulted in 501 permits issued (YTD), an increase of nearly five percent over 2022’s 479 permits issued through the paper system. As well, the permit issuance timeline has become significantly more efficient. Figure 1 illustrates this.

• Online building permit applications now average 28 days to issue compared to an average 97 days for “paper”
• Online over the counter (OTC) applications now average less than two days to issue compared to the seven-to- eight-day process of receiving, paying invoices and issuing “paper” OTC permits.

Figure 1. Average Days of Applications from Intake to Issuance

Inspection Services

Although the total number of received inspection requests has declined, the goal of inspection services performance is to continue providing consistent service which meets the quickly changing needs of our customers. See Figure 2.

Figure 2. Received Inspection Requests 2022-2023

Consistency has been the hallmark of 2023’s intake and performance of inspection requests—far more than 2022. This is illustrated in Figure 3. Predictability plays a larger role with this smoothing out of the inspection process. Both our SmartGov and paper in-house permit systems ensure that inspection services will continue to be provided in an efficient and effective manner.

Figure 3. Inspection Requests per month 2022-2023

Alfredo Corvalan, the city’s Assistant Planner and Permit Technician, recently took and passed his International Code Council (ICC) Permit Technician certification, so we now have certified permit technical staff.

Congratulations to Alfredo!

If you have any questions, please get in touch with me at aarrington@normandyparkwa.gov. Have a great week!

“SmartGov’s efficiency in processing, reviewing, and issuance of permit applications has resulted in 501 permits issued…”