As the pandemic forces municipalities to find new ways to deliver meaningful and effective customer service with physical distancing, potential office closures and a shift away from paper as a safe means of exchanging information, e-permitting is on the rise. The municipal building department in the Town of St. Marys has always acted with customer service as a top priority. During COVID-19, they had to consider how to still deliver a high customer service standard in the “new normal”.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity for municipalities across North America to embrace digitalization through e-permitting – Huron-Kinloss is helping lead the way for more effective building permit processes.
As municipalities look for ways to become more efficient during the pandemic, the Cloudpermit community continues to grow as municipalities share positive experiences with the software.
When municipal building inspectors arrive at a construction site, everyone involved is hoping that the inspection will be swift, smooth and uneventful. With mobile access to Cloudpermit on their tablets, inspectors at West Grey, can ease the process by ensuring all documents they need at their fingertips.
When the Town Hall moved to remote work, Chief Building Official Dave Methot decided that an online e-permitting system would give them the efficiency they needed to save precious time and serve the municipality better. Several other Ontario municipalities recommended the service and features of the cloud-based Cloudpermit platform.
North Middlesex got a new e-permitting system in record time with some help from the neighbouring municipality of Middlesex Centre. The municipality intended to upgrade to Cloudpermit in the coming months, but with the sudden arrival of the pandemic, Chief Administrative Officer Jonathon Graham knew he needed move fast to a paperless system.
This spring, numerous municipal building departments across the province have swiftly implemented e-permitting platforms to allow employees and the public to socially distance.
When the Township of North Kawartha, Ontario was faced with the COVID-19 lockdown, the municipal building department had to adapt quickly. “I am amazed by how easy the system is to use and how fast we were able to get up and running,” said Travis Toms, Chief Building Official. He added that it took only 4 weeks from his phone call during the pandemic to full implementation.
Municipalities across the province have had to conduct business differently in the wake of the COVID-19. The Municipality of West Grey, a mostly rural municipality south of Owen Sound, implemented Cloudpermit in January, which has allowed them to seamlessly adapt to the “new normal” of working from home, without interrupting service delivery.
The Municipality of Grey Highlands quickly rallied after a recent fire leveled a barn on a family farm. The farm, owned by a local Mennonite family, now has a new barn thanks to the partnership of their community and municipal staff, with the help of Cloudpermit, e-permitting software.
The municipalities of Middlesex Centre and Lucan Biddulph were among the first adopters of e-permitting in Ontario. They chose the Evolve system because it is the world-leading cloud-based software designed specifically for municipal building departments.
