The city has made some real gains on modernizing the application and inspection procedures for new low density homes such as my new semi detached project.  It has moved in a big way to electronic submission of plans and documents plus online booking and review of inspection outcomes.    

I’m a fan of this process.  It contributes to the productivity of the business operator when files can be moved around and approved paperlessly and appointments booked without even a phone call.  

There must be productivity improvement at city hall as well.  This is good because this summer getting staff to process permits was at times really difficult.  The staff appears to have massive holiday periods where little to no work is done. That really conflicts with how urgent it is to get work started during the warm season (warm season appears to be about 4 months long).  Any tactics to improve processing speed are welcome. The last dp took 5 painful months to get released and we were in jeopardy of losing a precious month of the best time to build.   We are pushing now big time to catch up.  Stucco season countdown clock is definitely ticking louder each day.     

As work progresses the city system allows the builder to access more inspection functions.  This should free up the 311 operators to deal with more pressing concerns.  I’m definitely over the hump of the learning curve with this stuff.  Now to synchronize it with my construction management system... possibly too much to ask.