Benefits for Municipalities

How SMARTreview AI Compliance Reports reduce permitting backlogs and improve plan review efficiency.

Municipalities & Plan Review

Municipalities face the difficult task of gatekeeping the issuance of building permits within their jurisdiction. During slow growth periods they may be overstaffed for plan reviews; during heavy growth periods they are often severely understaffed. In either case, the need for building code experts remains constant.

The diversity of plans received requires broad knowledge of the building code. Non-standardized compliance reports — or reports submitted with little information or many errors — cause backlogs to grow as those projects consume resources that could otherwise be used for reviewing complete submissions. In some respects it resembles a denial-of-service situation: the review queue is occupied by plans that are insufficient at first submittal, and since municipalities generally operate on a first-in-first-out basis, everyone suffers.

Backlogs carry significant economic cost. Delays reduce tax revenue collected in a fiscal year and can make a municipality non-competitive for large development projects. When developers see 6–8 month permitting delays, they may take their project to a neighboring jurisdiction where backlogs are far shorter.

Reducing the Rejection Rate of Initial Plan Submissions

A high rejection rate on initial submissions results from designers who either misunderstand the complexity of the applicable code or effectively use the municipality as their first reviewer. Initial rejection rates well above 50% are increasingly common, causing significant delays across all projects in the queue.

With SMARTreview AI Compliance Reports, the design is already verified against the applicable rule book and described in a detailed, standardized AI-authored report. Plans examiners will have all the necessary information in the initial submission to make a correct and accurate determination on releasing the permit.
Providing a Standardized Report

A standard report structure allows reviewers to become extremely familiar with how to find the information needed to make an informed decision. Repeated exposure to the same structure builds confidence that every aspect of the project was checked and verified, improving overall life safety. Report familiarity and comprehensiveness also reduces the time needed to determine that a permit can be released.

With SMARTreview AI Compliance Reports, a detailed and comprehensive plan review report is generated as a natural artifact of the design process. The report structure is consistent regardless of project complexity and includes:

  • Project Summary — an overview of overall project compliance against the rule book.
  • Rule Book Checklist — a checklist of each rule and the project’s pass/fail result.
  • Detailed Analysis — a narrative account authored by AI for each rule, showing exactly how the project complies or where it falls short.
Providing a Comprehensive Report

A report that describes compliance in rule-by-rule detail allows the plans examiner to quickly understand how the project relates to the building code and to see the reasoning behind each provision being satisfied. Framing the project in terms of the rule book bridges the information gap between design intent and code requirements, enabling the reviewer to quickly understand the project and release the permit.

With SMARTreview AI Compliance Reports, every aspect of the project is described under the relevant rule book section with supporting data that proves compliance. The plans examiner is presented with AI-authored descriptions and rationale for each design decision and will not need to pause the review to solicit additional clarification from the architect.