Welcome to the growing world of online permit applications, which started small but shows every sign of expanding rapidly. The association has been fielding an increasing number of calls from county officials interested in finding out about permit technology, she said. Depending on a county's resources, that technology can vary widely. On the low end, counties post Web pages with forms a citizen can print out and bring in to a permit office. On the high end, counties set up escrow accounts for construction companies that then jump online, request permits and have the fees automatically deducted from their accounts.
Online permits make sense for Houston.
The city's building permit office is downtown, but much of the construction takes place far from the city's center. Under the old system, still used by many builders and architects, contractors had to drive downtown, find a parking place, stand in line and wait for a city employee to enter data into a PC from paper applications the contractor filled out. In Houston, the business of issuing building permits is just that, a business within the city's government. Al Largent, assistant director of code enforcement, said the success of the online program isn't measured in how much money it saves, but how well it improves customer service. Still, our numbers of walk-in people are increasing because our entire business is going up.