San Jose building permits online
- By Daniel Keegan
- May 17, 2000
Residents of San Jose, Calif., can now complete building permit applications
online, including paying with a credit card and printing permits from the
Internet.
It's the first program in the state to use digital signatures to verify
documents since the process became legal in California at the start of the
year.
Contractors and homeowners can log onto www.sjpermits.com
to complete 22 building permits that do not need a technical review. The
city's Building Division issues more than 15,000 of those permits yearly.
The most common include roofing, piping and water heater replacements.
By allowing the permits to be submitted online, the city saves on administrative
costs, and the process is made easier for citizens, said Scott Troyer, the
permit center manager for the Building Division.
The site, launched May 12, requires that applicants have an e-mail address,
a major credit card, a Web browser, an Internet form viewer plug-in that
is available for free, a digital signature and a printer.
Once an application is completed, the applicant sends it to the city,
which verifies certain information such as the address, the owner, whether
the contractor has a business license, whether the property is in the historic
database and the credit card information.
If everything checks out, the applicant can print the application. Applicants
can also mail it to the city if they are unwilling to get a digital signature
identification, which can be used to verify the sender.
The permit process is part of a larger project that will allow development
permits to be processed online.