Rezoning and site plan reviews are essential paths to growth, housing, and economic development in communities of all sizes — but these processes take place in a high-pressure environment that leaves little room for inefficiencies or delays.
The challenges are clear:
- Increasing volumes of applications
- Continued staffing shortages
- Immense pressure for faster turnarounds
Fortunately, municipalities can streamline these processes by adopting the right online planning software to improve their operations.
Bottlenecks That Can Become a Big Problem
Even if everyone is on board with the same planning goals, delays are common due to numerous potential hurdles that can impede progress.
Potential bottlenecks come about due to things like:
- Manual circulation and routing workflows
- Repetitive, incomplete, or incorrect submissions
- A lack of internal coordination during reviews
- Missed updates
- Status confusion for applicants
- Manual neighbor notification processes for rezoning
An inability to track who’s responsible for each part of the process — and when they need to complete their task.
Municipalities that haven’t adopted a modern approach to these challenges are all too often left reeling, with a growing number of outstanding applications, overworked staff, and slower turnaround times.
Enhancing Rezoning and Site Plan Reviews
The challenges are clear, but how can cities and towns improve the vital processes of rezoning and site plan reviews?
For many municipalities, the answer comes down to upgrading every step of their workflow with modern planning software designed to address these obstacles and inefficiencies.
To streamline processes, planning departments should:
- Accept and review applications digitally
- Automate circulation and internal reviews
- Enable real-time status and milestone tracking
- Establish clear and efficient management
- Centralize communication
- Improve public notice and neighbor outreach
1. Accept and Review Applications Digitally
One of the most likely reasons why these important decisions can be delayed is incomplete or inaccurate applications.
Rather than going through a paper-based process, staff can prevent these problems by adopting a digital solution.
With digital acceptance and review of applications, planning departments can:
- Ensure complete submissions with all required documents
- Easily guide applicants through each step based on application type
- Reduce back-and-forth communication and rework
The right online planning software should make things easier, not more labor-intensive, by offering smart submission rules and built-in applicant guidance tools — no more duplicate work, and no more confusion for applicants.
2. Automate Circulation and Internal Reviews
Another part of the solution is to look for areas that can be automated, including circulation and internal reviews.
This change in the process means files can be automatically routed to planning, engineering, fire, public works, or outside agencies, simplifying the process and making it easier to complete these crucial steps.
Automation also includes assigning default circulation groups by application type and centralizing and tracking comments in a single shared platform.
Modern digital circulation tools remove manual email chains, helping everyone work together — without the confusion.
3. Enable Real-Time Status and Milestone Tracking
Keeping up with today’s planning work requires everyone to clearly understand where each file stands — and that’s so much easier with real-time status tracking and a clear view of milestones.
Digital tracking tools in a single shared property database help reduce follow-up calls and emails by providing planners, applicants, and consultants with real-time dashboards and timely alerts.
That means no more missed deadlines or unnecessary delays — just a better understanding of every step along the way.
4. Establish Clear and Efficient Management
Clear communication is vital for site plan changes and internal reviews, and it all comes down to how these updates are managed.
Today’s online planning software can level up these essential parts of the job. Cloudpermit’s community development software empowers planning departments with digital workflows so they can:
- Create formal “Reviews” in the platform to manage site plan feedback
- Assign reviews to departments or individuals with deadlines
- Capture and communicate required plan changes in one place
This comprehensive review feature helps staff coordinate feedback and share updates directly with applicants, keeping everyone in the loop without adding extra work for municipal professionals.
5. Centralize Communication
Communication is at the heart of today’s planning decisions — and a digital process makes this easier to perfect.
Modern features, such as built-in messaging tied to each application, can help staff share updates, questions, and file comments across departments. Rather than digging around for the latest notes or decisions, a complete digital record of conversations is always available to clear things up.
With Cloudpermit, planning departments can move away from email silos and scattered information and embrace the potential of modern communication with streamlined in-application messaging.
6. Improve Public Notice and Neighbor Outreach
The right online planning software gives planning departments powerful new ways to handle a crucial part of the job: keeping up with public notices and neighbor outreach for rezonings.
Cloudpermit empowers planners to automate public notice generation using application data and pull mailing lists of neighbors based on GIS radius — all with just a few clicks.
These powerful tools make it easier than ever to comply with statutory rezoning communication requirements.
Cloudpermit: Built for Real-World Planning Workflows
Today’s planning departments need digital tools that reflect how municipalities actually work — not just ideal workflows.
That’s why many cities have turned to Cloudpermit to modernize every step of the process, including how they deal with the ongoing challenges of rezoning and site plan reviews.
Our online planning software stands apart from other options with its comprehensive features, including:
- Digital circulation and review tools
- GIS integration for neighbor radius and parcel data
- Applicant portals and built-in messaging
Streamlining rezoning and site plan review means better timelines, more predictable outcomes, and happier applicants.
With Cloudpermit, municipalities have a digital partner to reduce staff burden, coordinate reviews more quickly, and improve transparency.
Book a demo with us to see how we can help your planning department.
