What Government Leaders Say About Online Planning Software

Planning is at the heart of community development efforts, and local governments in the U.S. and Canada have realized they need modern tools to meet their modern challenges. A growing number of city and county departments have turned to Cloudpermit’s online land use and planning software to speed up processes — and the results speak for themselves.

Department leaders and staff members praise our platform for its easy-to-use, comprehensive products for planning, zoning, development, and land use. Whether it’s the ability to collaborate better than ever, speed up planning, or make meetings more efficient and organized, there are many benefits of choosing the right software for these important aspects of community development.

Here’s what our local government clients had to say about our planning software.

Make Your Department More Efficient and Organized

The City of Brantford, Ontario, made its digital leap in 2022 when the Planning Development Services department modernized its processes with our online software. In the past, the department reviewed applications on paper or in emails and circulated documents with inefficient software.

Now, with Cloudpermit, we’ve gained greater efficiency and organization — it’s been a positive experience,” said Jeff Medeiros, Acting Manager of Development Planning.

Cloudpermit's comprehensive products for community development helped Brantford meet the growing needs of its citizens. From February 2023 to July 2024, the city’s staff created 2,385 workspaces for building permits and planning applications using this software — adding up to thousands of files.

Before this system, managing our data was a challenge,” Medeiros said. “Now, we can easily track data and our files more efficiently.”

Speed Up Planning

Sustainability was a major motivation for changing the formerly paper-based permitting, planning, and enforcement processes in the City of Fruita, Colorado. Online platforms greatly reduced paper usage in the local government, and leaders were impressed with the ease of integrating other systems to accept payments or streamline their departments.

Outside of government offices, citizens and stakeholders especially noticed the many ways permitting and planning software could speed up planning and community development.

By using cloud-based software, we can fast track gathering information for faster building permits and planning approvals,” said City Planner Henry Hemphill. “As a result, we can offer services aligned with our values that better respect our public’s time. Our citizens are very important to our council and staff, so we’re happy that our community has warmly embraced Cloudpermit.”

Speeding things up became a necessity for the Town of Kingsville, Ontario, when local leaders had to find ways to comply with Ontario’s More Homes Built Faster bill. The 2022 act and another related bill set new review timelines that planning departments had to meet or miss out on application fees.

Because of the software, Kingsville started receiving more complete applications, greatly reducing the processing and review times while also simplifying internally circulating studies and documents.

It’s really sped up our review times,” said Manger of Planning Services George Robinson. “Since we’ve converted to Cloudpermit, we’ve consecutively been able to issue draft approvals for site plans in less than 30 days, which is less than half of the timeline the province requires.”

Collaborate Better Than Ever

Collaboration is crucial for local governments, especially when it comes to working more efficiently with other departments.

Jeff Medeiros, Acting Manager of Development Planning, said our platform has helped the City of Brantford easily circulate applications and information to the people who need it, streamlining the overall review and approval process.

One of the biggest benefits of this system is simple information sharing,” he said. “We easily share projects within our department, other departments in the city, and external stakeholders. We did not have a centralized database before, but Cloudpermit has filled that gap.”

Planning staff for the Town of North Elba, New York, benefited from streamlined approval processes and a simple way to keep everyone in the loop.

We can easily share information between departments, such as showing a building permit to our zoning board,” said Britt Waite, the town’s Building & Planning Development Clerk/STR Compliance Monitor. “We can ensure our staff stay informed with online permitting, zoning, and code enforcement software.”

When the County of Lambton, Ontario, adopted Cloudpermit for its enforcement management software, it also unlocked the ability to more fully collaborate across departments.

I can look up an address and view everything, so I know what is open and active on a property,” said Chief Building Office Corrine Nauta. “This is helpful when I do outstanding work orders and zoning reports with the planning department, or when I need to communicate when a property is being sold with an existing order on it.”

Make Planning Better with the Right Software

The right planning software can speed up planning processes and support better collaboration. In the Town of Searsport, Maine, software also made the planning board more efficient than ever before.

Victor Mazza, Searsport’s Code Enforcement Officer who also oversees the town’s building and land use departments, said planning board members can see applications as soon as they’re uploaded. Applications are automatically attached to upcoming meetings, and when members meet, everyone is already up to speed and ready to make decisions.

There are so many ways that the latest online software can help planning departments get more done faster and more efficiently — but not all products are equal, and governments need to carefully research their options to choose the right platform for their local needs.