Planning

Grow strong, safe and viable communities

Planning that improves community quality, promotes economic growth and protects citizen welfare.

Things like zoning, site plan reviews and issuing land use entitlements can be time consuming with paper-based or semi-automated processes and workarounds. Fortunately, Accela’s Civic Application for Planning fast-tracks community development by automating and moving these processes into a digital environment.

The solution’s online portal makes it simple for citizens to submit proposals, check for status updates and pay outstanding fees. Plus, planners can easily manage high volumes of information and route documents for review and approval by the right people at the right time. This ensures a quick turnaround for developers and project owners.

Features

Online citizen portal

Enable citizens to conduct zoning research, submit proposals, verify status updates and pay fees from the convenience of a home, office or job site to reduce in-person visits and phone inquiries.

Built-in reporting

Deliver administrators, managers and planning commissions or boards critical insight to better understand agency performance, uncover bottlenecks and establish efficiencies.

Automated push notifications

Easily notify project owners, city council members, the general public and press for public hearings, reviews and feedback.
Platform-wide integrations

APIs, SDKs, and open data allow developers to integrate with existing software solutions to meet the unique needs of any agency.

GIS mapping

Easily produce interactive maps and visualizations, making planning and code enforcement data easy to track, manage and understand.

Electronic document review

Mark-up, comment, review and approve plans simultaneously leveraging systems like ePermitHub, Adobe, Bluebeam, ProjectDox and more to perform parallel plan reviews with version control.
Mobile office

Role-based apps allow inspectors and code enforcement officers to access documents and information real-time in the field, increasing efficiencies.

Workflow management system

Automatically assign and track tasks such as plan reviews with their associated documentation to keep the most complex processes running smoothly.

Code enforcement

Ensure public compliance with city code and regulation by managing complaints and violations to achieve resolution quickly and efficiently.

We are moving the City to a place where we give more information to the public, are more efficient at tracking our own records and are creating a systematic process.”

Tom Vanover

Building Commissioner, Cleveland, OH

Benefits

Drive rapid community development

Speed plan reviews, zoning and rezoning, conditional use permitting, land use entitlements, and variance requests with automated processes to promote economic growth and faster growing communities.
Promote strong case management

Streamline processes for collaborating on planning applications and access project documentation like site plans, proposals, applications and requests with a few easy clicks for total land management.
Break down inter-department silos

Share plan and code data with building department personnel to arm them with the right information to begin and persist in the permitting process.
Create safe livable communities

Automate the inspection and enforcement of planning codes to ensure growth plans are adhered to and communities develop as intended.