Online permitting has been a dream for Plant City for years. Monday evening city commissioners began making that dream a reality.
The new system will allow online permit tracking and application, electronic plans submissions and reviews, status updates and obtaining permits and paying from any device. It will also allow inspectors to use mobile devices to access information, review plans and add comments in the field electronically.
“There’s a massive amount of work ahead to get this thing up and running,” City Manager Bill McDaniel said. “You’re looking at a year-long process to bring this thing online.”
Implementation of the project will begin in January and the estimate is the new portal will be live by Nov. 2019.
On June 6 a proposal for online permitting was issued and by July 19 nine proposals were sent to the city. A selection committee combed through the proposals and on Aug. 8 the committee selected MaintStar, CitizenServe, ViewPoint, and Calvin, Giordano & Associates Inc. to present demonstrations of the application they each would provide.
MaintStar was chosen as the best vendor on Aug. 27 due to its immense available features that will help streamline processes for the staff and help residents better interact with the city.
The city is paying approximately $331,000 over the course of five years to purchase the Software as a Service – Land Management Solution from MaintStar. Implementation and configuration in the first year are the largest chunk of the cost, totaling $198,500. The annual hosting and support will then range from $30,000 to $36,000.
The city is also going to be looking for a project manager to oversee the completion of the project. It will not pay more than $60,000 to hire them and will fund the cost through the project.
Applying for, paying for and tracking permits of all types, whether they be a complicated building permit or a simple fence permit will all be available at the touch of a button.
The site will also feature a code enforcement portal where residents can submit complaints and check the status of a code case. Code enforcement issues can be submitted directly to the site and a map of all the reported code enforced cases and permits will be in one centralized location.
One of the highlights of the new portal is the in the field capabilities for inspectors. Using a tablet they can take photos , write comments and submit them directly to the site. All inspection scheduling will be done via the software, according to McDaniel.
“It will be a huge jump in efficiency and effectiveness for our inspectors,” McDaniel said. “This is going to be a great asset for our city.”