Digital building permit services expected in a city with median population age of 35
Mansfield, TX
Mansfield, Texas is a suburban community with a younger population in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Serving a population of over 70,000, the city wanted to shift their building permitting digital. Working on a quick timeline, the city was able to implement an online submission portal and digital permit review.
Topics Covered
Funding
General Fund/Existing Public Funds
Project Status
Operational since 2020
Gov Champion
Building Services
Problem Addressed
With a younger population, Mansfield residents expected an efficient, online permitting process.
The City of Mansfield, Texas is a suburban community in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area with a population of approximately 70K. With a median population age of 35, the citizens expected online access and an efficient, digital service when applying for building permits.
When the city brought on a new Director of Building Services in early 2019, building permits were issued through paper-based submissions. This created inefficiencies and frustration at both the government and citizen level. The new director was mandated with implementing a digital platform to replace Mansfield's current system.
According to the director, "Our citizens asked for a more accessible process. We needed something that was more holistic that would integrate our customer portal, electronic submittal and review - and permitting and inspection."
Solutions Used
Mansfield automated their highest volume of permit flows within 6 months.
With the goal of getting their automated system live by the end of 2019, the team needed to move procurement and implementation quickly after choosing a product.
To keep on track with deadlines, they utilized a phased approach, where they automated the highest volume permit flows for Residential and Commercial Buildings first with OAS and ProjectDox. Beginning the project in August of 2019, the city had their online submission portal and electronic plan review ready for Residential and Commercial Building permits in January 2020. With the COVID-19 pandemic around the corner, this online transition proved critical to keeping operations up and running.
Once the systems were implemented, extensive customer service helped train staff on the platform. With onsite and virtual training, staff was able to quickly integrate the new technology into their workflows. This put them in the best possible position to handle the sudden switch to a virtual world.
Outcomes
1
With record setting months in quantity in number of permits issued following the COVID-19 pandemic, staff was able to best handle the increase in applications despite the virtual transition
2
New submission portal for digital building permits and electronic plan review implemented in less than five months
3
Robust, developed training that helped staff quickly adapt to the digital permitting platform, allowing them to serve the community as soon as possible
Who Should Consider
Communities looking to increase building permitting efficiency by moving operations online.
Last Updated
Mar 14th, 2022More resources about this case study
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