Stockton to invest in new permitting software for bilingual, 24/7 service

Ben Irwin, The Record
·2 min read
At the July 26 Stockton City Council meeting, council approved a $636,938 five-year contract with Open Counter Enterprises of Boston, Massachusetts for their decision tree and permit discovery software. The cost will be funded by a 7.5% fee charged on most city permits.
At the July 26 Stockton City Council meeting, council approved a $636,938 five-year contract with Open Counter Enterprises of Boston, Massachusetts for their decision tree and permit discovery software. The cost will be funded by a 7.5% fee charged on most city permits.

The city of Stockton will invest in new software to streamline the permitting process for a bilingual, customer-friendly experience for those looking to start their own business or home renovation project.

At the July 26 Stockton City Council meeting, council approved a $636,938 five-year contract with Open Counter Enterprises of Boston, Massachusetts, for their decision tree and permit discovery software. The cost will be funded by a 7.5% fee charged on most city permits.

Rob Liddicoat, deputy director of community development for the city of Stockton, said customers find several challenges with the current process. Information is scattered across multiple websites, specifics often need to be provided directly from staff in different departments — who are only available during working hours — and the city’s municipal code terminology can confuse customers, Liddicoat said.

“If somebody wants to start a business and they’ve found the perfect spot, a small little retail space,” Liddicoat said. “They’ll come in to apply for the business license, and they may find that we need a county environmental health permit beforehand if it has anything to do with food … they may come in for what they think is a simple request and then find that they actually need (more).”

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On the Open Counter software, customers will take a 5-10-minute dynamic questionnaire online that triggers results on an easy-to-read map linked to the city’s Geographic Information System (GIS) platform. The program matches common search terms with the correct municipal code and a comprehensive summary of all permits, licenses and fees tailored to the specific location and project details.

“This will pull all of that information from all these different sources and put it all together in terms that people who aren’t city staff can recognize and understand,” Liddicoat said.

Once up and running — implementation is expected to take seven months — customers will have 24/7 access to the program in both Spanish and English. Based on information from existing Open Counter customers, Liddicoat said they’ve seen enough use of the software to equate to 80-200 hours a week of staff time saved.

“No software is going to be able to solve every single problem or answer every single question, but we do think this will be a vast improvement to the current situation,” Liddicoat said. “What that means is more staff time is spent on processing permit applications and getting those permits issued faster.”

Record reporter Ben Irwin covers Stockton and San Joaquin County government. He can be reached at birwin@recordnet.com or on Twitter @B1rwin. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow. 

This article originally appeared on The Record: Stockton to update software for business, renovation permits