Santa Rosa expands planning department hours, online services

Santa Rosa is trying to make it easier for businesses and residents to get permit questions answered online or in person at City Hall.

The city has nearly doubled the hours the front counter of the Planning and Economic Development Department is open to residents.

Instead of 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday with the counter closed for lunch, the office is now open 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. those days and no longer closes during lunch, Raissa De La Rosa, economic development coordinator, told the City Council Tuesday.

She said the department is also considering adding Friday counter hours.

The city's new web portal allows businesses and residents to better understand and track the city's permit possesses.

She said because the “vast majority” of people seeking permit information from the city are novices, the portal was designed for ease of use. It allows people to view permit activity on an interactive map, apply for permits, schedule inspections and crunch numbers on a data portal.

“This is an incredibly valuable tool for us,” De La Rosa said of the portal, called Permit Santa Rosa, and located at www.srcity.org/permit.

She said the number of permits the city receives online had increased from 20 percent last year to 30 percent this year. The type of permits that can be applied for online is also expanding, and will soon include permits for solar arrays, film production and tree removal, she said.

In the past 30 days, the site offered information on about 1,113 permit applications. For example, anyone interested in the progress of the 20-unit North Street Apartments project can find out it received its building permit on July 19, and on Sept. 7 had an inspection regarding a water line. The department is still working out some kinks in the system, however. For example, a user has to reload the interactive map 11 times to see all 1,113 permits from the last 30 days.

In addition, the permit data were not fully up to date as of Tuesday evening. The interactive map showed no reference to the closely watched project granting a first-ever zoning clearance for a cannabis-manufacturing facility to a Seattle-based firm at 975 Corporate Center Parkway.

Yet there was lots of information about a similar project by Santa Rosa-based CBD Guild, which wants to operate a cannabis oil extraction and testing facility about a block away at 2330 Circadian Way.

Department Director David Guhin said it was unclear why the information had yet to be entered into the system, but said such kinks are to be expected with a new system.

The addition of new staff and technology to the department has slashed wait times at the department, improvements that have been well received in the community, he said.

Contractors, for example, can now apply for some routine permits from the field and get an answer in just a few minutes, he said.

“We're getting great feedback from the development community and our residential customers,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 707-521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @srcitybeat.