West Perth Implements E-Permitting During COVID-19 as Positive Cloudpermit Experiences Continue to be Shared

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.

The Municipality of West Perth, located in Western Perth County with a population just under 9,000 residents, has recently joined the Cloudpermit community.

The municipal building department first heard of Cloudpermit in 2018 at an OBOA (Ontario Building Officials Association) conference and has since heard successful use cases within their local chapter.

We’d heard great things from other municipalities about how easy Cloudpermit was to learn how to use and how contractors found it easy to transition to a digital service,” explained Bob McLean, Chief Building Official for the Municipality of West Perth. “We decided to look into Cloudpermit to become more efficient during the pandemic and because of the positive experiences we’d heard within the building community.”

Cloudpermit went live in September in West Perth and has helped the municipal building department streamline its building permit processes.

When we were using a paper-based system during COVID-19, it was inefficient to go back-and-forth to the office dropbox to pick up permits,” shared McLean. “Cloudpermit has helped streamline our processes and has improved the flow of permits in and out of the office as we’re dealing with 90% less paper than we had before.”

West Perth has experienced the same ease-of-use feedback from contractors that they had heard from other municipalities in their community.

We’ve received feedback from some of our contractors that they’re loving Cloudpermit,” said Diane Chaffe, Building Department Administrative Assistant for the Municipality of West Perth. “Contractors enjoy that they do not need to come to the municipal office to drop off plans and can upload plans when it’s convenient for them.”

The Municipality of West Perth’s digital transformation will help encourage other municipalities to follow its e-permitting lead to become more efficient.