CCCIA: Progress being made with city permit processing
The past four months have been rough for the Cape Coral Construction Industry Association.
While seeing a building boom that includes 700 single-family home permits in a single month could be a good problem to have, the fact that the city of Cape Coral’s new permitting system still is having some problems processing them has weighed on the “problem” side of that good-news bad-news equation.
CCCIA Executive Director Bill Johnson Jr. sent a “state of the union” e-mail to member businesses on Tuesday, with an update on the city’s EnerGov permitting system at the top of the list.
“February 22, 2022, is a day that we all won’t soon forget any time soon. We are coming up on the four-month mark of when this permitting system launched. During these past four months, we have all seen extended delays, shutdowns, issues with the system and overall frustration as an industry,” Johnson’s e-mail started.
The city, with the help of the CCCIA, though, has made progress on getting the bugs worked out, and Johnson provided an update as to what’s been happening and what they see on the horizon.
“Hopefully, in the future we will get through all these obstacles and get back to normalcy,” Johnson said. “When you transition to a new system there’s always going to be problems. This was no different than any other system.”
However, things got so bad that the city shut its new online permitting system down for nine days around Easter to catch up on a backlog of permits. While there have been some hiccups since, things have improved, Johnson said, adding he wanted to let membership know what has happened on that front.
Besides the single-family home permits, the city has reconfigured some of the more used and easier permit types such as roofing so the city can focus more on the single-family permit reviews. HVAC permits will come online this coming Monday. Irrigation will be the last permit type, which will roll out around July 1.
The city also has hired a third-party integrator firm, Plant Moran, to work with city staff to help optimize and fix the major issues that are currently still occurring with the EnerGov transition. Plant Moran came aboard last week and has set up interviews with key staff for next week to get a better assessment, Johnson said.
Contributing to the problem might be volume the permits, which are at numbers the city hasn’t seen since 2004-05.
More than 700 single-family permits were issued in May alone, Johnson said.
“They issued more permits in May than the entire first year I was executive director in 2014. On top of that with all the other permits and a new system,” Johnson said. “We’re working with them regarding staffing because this has been the busiest year yet.”
Johnson said the city is using every resource possible to make the EnerGov process more effective.
“We at the CCCIA are working with the city to make sure we get the messaging out, address any issues, notify them of any issues from our membership base and hopefully we will hit the finish line and put this mess behind us,” Johnson said.
To reach CHUCK BALLARO, please email news@breezenewspapers.com