On Wednesday morning Mayor Marty Walsh will address the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce to discuss some of the forthcoming city projects his administration is cooking up. One of those is a brand new webpage dedicated solely to accommodating the needs of those seeking a residential or commercial permit.
Tackling the city’s antiquated, convoluted permitting system was one of Mayor Walsh’s foundational campaign promises. By overhauling and streamlining this process, individuals, entrepreneurs, and business owners can attain what they’re seeking in much easier fashion without clogging municipal operations.
The webpage affords people and entities the opportunity to view their permit or license through every stage of the applicable process. Every process is different, as is every permit, but the themes of transparency and ease is constant.
“Mayor Walsh wanted permitting to become a clear, more predictable process,” said Department of Innovation and Technology’s Matt Maryl. “In our research we found a major pain point is an inability to find out where they are in the permit process.”
The new site builds on the success of HubHacks, an inaugural hackathon for which participants vied to find solutions to civic issues like permitting.
“It’ll allow residents to look up permit numbers, see what’s ahead of them and city staff that’s responsible,” added Maryl.
Letting people see every step of the process gives them peace of mind and constantly keeps them up to date on where they stand.
Maryl said the City of Boston will roll out the website initially to be able to accommodate Inspectional Service Department and Fire permits, because they’re the most common. Some business licensing items will also be available, but the ultimate goal will be to facilitate every license and permit from this page.
Earlier this month Mayor Walsh announced a partnership between the City of Boston and Accela. The hope is that together they’ll will bear fruitful results in working across departments to assist in coordinating workflow, integrating a variety of backend systems, and providing an improved public experience that still maintains the rules created to protect public health and safety.
Mayor Walsh is slated to address the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce at 8:10 a.m. He’ll also reflect on his first year in office and touch upon economic development as well as housing reform.
