How Community Development Software Can Make Towns More Efficient

Rob Christian wears a lot of hats in Roscommon Township, Michigan. He's served as the Zoning Administrator and Ordinance Enforcement Officer for nearly five years — and he oversees zoning and land use permits. In addition to being a member of the township board, he’s the local assistant fire chief, so he can get called away for emergencies while he’s working on somebody’s permit.

He said he inherited systems that weren’t fully ironed out yet, or older software that lacked more advanced features. In June 2022, Christian started working with Cloudpermit’s online software for permitting and enforcement management. The change allowed him to restructure local processes and be more efficient than ever.

I’m going into Cloudpermit every single day and reviewing properties and issuing permits and doing inspections and all the things that it allows me to do,” he said.

Easier Enforcement Management

Changing community development software is a big shift, and Christian said the change went off without a hitch.

Cloudpermit’s team helped him learn how to best use the platform and configure everything to run smoothly.

They were very good,” he said. “I had multiple meetings with them and ran through different modules and different aspects of the program. I want to say it was almost three months of doing that.”

When the software was ready to launch, “we were ready,” he said. Since then, Christian has streamlined the way his community processes land use permits.

It has made it very easy to not only issue permits but input information and organization information in a way that makes it easy for me to do that job,” he said.

Christian said he’s most benefited from what this software can do for local enforcement management. With Cloudpermit, he can easily build cases, organize information, upload pictures and notes from the field, and speed up the overall timeframe.

That has allowed me to be very efficient with enforcing the township’s ordinances, and that to me has been well worth the money in every aspect,” he said.

A Tool for Efficiency

Whenever Christian is out in the field, he can use a mobile inspections app, Cloudpermit Inspections, to schedule inspections, upload pictures and notes, and complete final inspections for permits.

It’s good to do that and then be done with all that out in the field because I'm not coming back into the office and then re-inputting all that information,” he said. “That would take additional time to do the exact same work.”

Because the inspections app works whether the user is online or offline, he can get his work done wherever and whenever it needs to happen.

With so many responsibilities in the community, Christian said Cloudpermit lets him get more done with his limited time. He said he looks forward to learning more things he can do on the platform.

It’s allowed me to be a lot more efficient with what I do and how I do it,” he said.

Make Your Government More Efficient

Local governments across North America trust Cloudpermit’s online community development and permitting software to speed up processes and reduce administrative work.

In the Town of Searsport, Maine, this software cut the building permit turnaround time from two weeks to four hours or less. It’s helped communities recover after fires and modernize their planning, inspections, permitting, and enforcement.