The city of Naperville is taking steps to improve its process for reviewing and approving active building permit applications in response to customer feedback.
Feedback received through listening sessions
Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli said he first heard about building permitting and inspection challenges through customer emails.
Realizing there were many struggling to navigate the portal and contact city staff with questions, Wehrli and Transportation, Engineering and Development department representatives held listening sessions with customers to understand their concerns.
In focus groups through the summer and fall, the city heard about frustrations with the online portal and permit application timelines, specifically with building permits.
Customers said they had difficulties navigating the online portal, experienced timelines not being met and delays from resubmittals, and saw differences in service from third-party reviewers and inspectors compared to city staff.
Portal created to help streamline process
The city created the current Civic Access portal about two years ago to streamline requests as the volume of applications had increased and paper applications became difficult to manage during COVID-19.
TED Director Jennifer Louden said that her staff typically aim to review first permit submittals within 21 days, and any subsequent submittals within 14 days. Inspections are ongoing throughout the process.
“Everything is done electronically, both the intake, the routing for review, the completion of the review, as well as the permit issuance, tracking of all the inspections, and then issuing occupancy and completion certificates. So from the beginning to the end, everything is through that portal,” Louden said.
Lack of face-to-face interaction lends to frustrations
After hearing the feedback, TED Director Jennifer Louden said she believes the frustrations stem from a lack of face-to-face interaction with city staff.
“When we implemented the portal system two years ago, I think our customers really felt like that direct connection with staff and knowing who to call when you ran into a problem sort of disappeared, and I think that’s one of the things we’ve been working really hard to reestablish,” Louden said.
Wehrli agreed, recalling how customers said they preferred speaking to city staff over third party services.
“There was an overwhelming theme that our customers, on all sides of the fence, they want to work with city employees,” Wehrli said. “And that I think is the ultimate compliment is them knowing that we’ve got great people and that we’re on it.”
Steps made to improve building permitting process
The city has since added three more in-house TED staff for plan review and inspection: a code official, a building inspector and an engineering manager. Wehrli and city council unanimously approved the positions at the August 18 city council meeting.
Other actions the city is taking to address these permit and inspection concerns include:
- Restoring live phone support during business hours
- Expanding inspection schedules to include by phone during business hours or through the Civic Access portal
- Contacting permit applicants for requested inspection dates that cannot be made through the online portal
- Continuing third-party services for plan reviews and inspections to help meet timelines
- Appointing TED Deputy Director Kimberly Schmidt as the head point of contact for questions or concerns with permit applications
Naperville is also considering long-term improvements, like enhancing Civic Access, improving customer guidance, strengthening staff training, streamlining approvals and evaluating review timelines.
Ongoing improvements from continued feedback
Wehrli and Louden said this summer and fall’s focus groups would not be the only time the city receives customer feedback.
“As we start to work on some of those portal adjustments and things like that, we’re going to want to make sure that there’s open communication for continued feedback,” Louden said.
She said Naperville typically receives thousands of permit applications each year.
“It’s a great thing for Naperville, but it’s also a challenge for us because knowing that we’ve got all this stuff coming and tracking what that pipeline is going to look like means we have to have enough staffing and resources to absorb it and process it,” Wehrli said. “We want to make sure that we are number one in that space of doing things as efficiently and effectively as possible, and having the reputation of being the place to do business.”
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