For decades, everyone’s tried to fix permitting challenges the same way: write better procedures, create checklists, document everything.
This approach doesn’t seem to be working. Permitting departments still deal with inconsistent reviews, new staff take years to get up to speed, and applicants still face unpredictable timelines and contradictory feedback. Maybe it’s not the goal of standardizing that’s the issue. Maybe it’s how we’ve been doing it.
Why Traditional Standardization Keeps Failing
The conventional approach to standardization works great for repeatable processes. Document it once, train staff to follow it, and you’ll get consistent results. But this process falls apart for plan review.
A new-construction residential project has entirely different requirements from an interior bathroom remodel. A fire review for a single-family home looks nothing like a fire review for a mixed-use development. The art of plan review has always been knowing which parts of the code matter for each project, and that knowledge traditionally lived only in experienced reviewers’ heads.
When longtime reviewers retire, the decades of institutional know-how go with them. Most departments never successfully transferred that expertise into standard operating procedures, and new reviewers often learn through staff-to-staff knowledge sharing.
Dawn Takeuchi Apuna, Director of Honolulu’s Department of Planning and Permitting, describes it in this webinar about her department’s experience with CivCheck: “A new staffer would come in, and the last new staffer would teach them what they knew.”
Applicants feel this inconsistency directly. Comments in round two contradict approvals from round one, or one reviewer flags something another missed.
Meanwhile, on the applicant side, the lack of standards accidentally encourages repeat or incomplete submissions. When there’s no fine for incomplete applications and unlimited review cycles, applicants submit early and often, using cities as code consultants.
“We can do only so much as far as helping our staff be better, have our systems be better,” Dawn explains, “but then we’re limited in how we make the applicants do better.”
What If Standardization Could Adapt?
AI changes the equation here. Instead of trying to document every possible scenario in a procedural manual, it analyzes each project’s unique scope and generates a customized review checklist based on local codes, state standards, amendments, and memos.
CivCheck’s approach creates what you might call “dynamic standardization.” Applicants know exactly what their jurisdiction will check before formal submission. Plan reviewers get consistent guidance regardless of experience level, making sure that a new reviewer conducts the same quality (and strictness) of review as the most experienced reviewer.
The system gives you standardization without locking every project into the same checklist, generating the right checklist for each project instead.
The Results
When Honolulu implemented CivCheck for residential permits, testing with 11 plan reviewers showed a 70% reduction in review time. Reviews that used to take 60-90 minutes now take 15-20 minutes.
Plan reviewers felt the difference: “CivCheck helps a lot with my plan review. What works well is that CivCheck helps as another set of eyes on each project and will catch things that we may miss.”
Honolulu reviewers are seeing far more consistency now. New reviewers can conduct thorough, standardized reviews from day one. Applicants know exactly what will be checked, regardless of who reviews their plans.
The Cultural Component
Technology alone won’t fix this. Dawn shares the real challenge: “The biggest challenge is that cultural shift. You really have to involve and bring your staff and even the applicant along with you. They really need to be involved from day one.”
The cultural shift is less about convincing people to follow better procedures and more about recognizing that the old model of standardization (static checklists and long manuals) was a mismatch to the work itself.
Dawn noted why industry expertise mattered when selecting CivCheck: “You can’t just say, I’m going to use AI in this industry and have no idea what that means, what we do as a building department is very complicated.”
“If I can give staff the tools, the capacity to do their job effectively, everything will work out,” she shares. What’s proving most effective is smart systems that generate project-specific standards on demand.
When that happens, applicants submit better quality plans, reviewers conduct consistent reviews regardless of experience level, and departments can capacity plan based on actual volume.
The challenge was never a lack of effort. The real issue was trying to use one-size-fits-all procedures for work that changes with every project.
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To hear more from Dawn about her experience implementing and working with CivCheck, watch the webinar recording.
