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City building services now available online
By Jana Seshadri
Contractors, businesses and homeowners now have the alternative of using the full range of building services online rather than going to city hall in person. Those interested only need to visit www.e-onestop.net.
"The online permits will take 10 minutes at the most," said Diana Perkins, plan checker for the city of Sunnyvale's Building Safety Division. "Whereas, it might take at least a half hour to get the permit in person, not counting the commute time, and if there's a line, then the waiting time for that."
In October 1999 Sunnyvale became one of the first cities in the country to introduce an online epermit system, and now more services have been added. Labeled "E-OneStop," these online services range from scheduling building inspections and obtaining minor building permits to monitoring the status of building plan checks and second-story status and obtaining permit histories for planning and building permits.
The fees for the minor building permits will remain the same, whether a person applies for it in person or online. However, E-OneStop simplifies the process for the required service. Anytime day or night, customers can obtain the permit they want.
"Inspection scheduling can entail a wait over the phone," Perkins said. "But it can be scheduled for the next day, on-line, without any wait."
She said the customer could print out the page with the confirmation number and hand that over to the inspector.
When contractors or individuals require permit histories from the city, they usually have to pay per page, and each history takes approximately half an hour. But the online process results in considerable savings in time and money for both the city and the customer.
"We usually get three to four permit history requests a day," Perkins said. Now these can just be printed out by the customer, as long as they have access to a computer and a printer, and it saves them a lot of time too. This will reduce staff time for the city considerably."
Ali Fatapour, Sunnyvale's chief building official, says E-OneStop is just the beginning of high-tech services the city may offer in the future.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
