Overview
Digital Permitting for a Growing County
Fairfield County’s Auditor’s Office runs the county’s lot split program. When a property owner wants to subdivide a parcel, the request has to clear every agency with a stake in it, including townships, ODOT, and a multi-regional agency, for a total of 22 review agencies across the county.
For years, those applications moved on paper. Staff carried them between offices, and sometimes the applicants carried them. As the county grew and its agencies spread out, a single application could spend weeks in transit. Real Estate Assessment Director David Burgei set out to replace the process with digital permitting that staff could see, applicants could plan around, and leadership could measure.
“As we continue to grow here in Fairfield, our agencies grew not only in numbers, but in locations throughout the county. Instead of having everybody in a centralized area, we have agencies throughout the entire county, making this process of a paper-driven approval review much more difficult.”
Impact
- 22 review agencies on one workflow
- 2-stage review process
- 18 months in production
Challenge
- Applicants paid thousands of dollars for surveys and legal descriptions before the county formally weighed in, and a late objection meant starting over
- Applications moved physically between offices, so staff had to make their own calls to answer a status question
- Routing was inconsistent, and not every agency saw every application at the right point in the process
Solution
- A preliminary application with approximate lot size, road frontage, and location goes out for agency review before the applicant commissions a survey
- County GIS staff add spatial context to each preliminary application before it routes
- Final review uses sequential and parallel routing, with the Regional Planning Commission selecting the agencies each application needs
- Reviewers can request more information, deny with a written reason, or advance an application, and every action is logged automatically
- County program staff own and maintain the workflow, not IT
Results
- A shared dashboard shows every application’s current stage, so staff answer status questions without picking up the phone
- Every review action, denial reason, and status change is on record
- Reviewers spend their time on surveys and legal descriptions instead of moving paper
- Integrated Power BI reporting shows leadership application volume by township and where reviews stall
- Applicants get agency feedback before paying for a survey
- Additional permit types and a constituent status portal are in progress
“We’re not trying to make it easier to do lot splits. We’re trying to make the process more efficient, for the property owner and for us. Having the preliminary review allows them to plan better, save money, and be more efficient before they invest their time and resources.”
Fairfield County, Ohio
Population
158,921
Use Case
Lot Split Permitting
Department
Auditor’s Office
Municipality
County