The city of San Jose, Calif., will pilot the use of AI technology to make the permitting process more efficient, with a goal of addressing the state’s housing crisis.
The Silicon Valley city has been a leader in AI, from its GovAI Coalition, to a recent staff upskilling initiative, to its AI Incentive Program.
Officials have been piloting AI to speed workflow processes in various ways, and have made permitting the next target.
“It’s time to bring permitting into the 21st century,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said in a statement.
The city’s Planning, Building and Code Enforcement Department (PBCE) will pilot the use of AI software, to help customers check the information on accessory dwelling unit (ADU) applications before they are submitted. The idea is to mitigate time spent addressing a common challenge: A full 90 percent of ADU applications in the city are sent back to the customer to address missing information. This missing information and the ensuing additional reviews can slow the permitting process down by weeks.
“If we can help applicants walk in, better prepared on the process, that will make the entire process more predictable, and it will hopefully deliver shorter permitting times,” Stephen Caines, who serves as chief innovation officer and city budget director, and senior adviser to Mahan, said.
The AI software aims to quickly identify missing or incomplete information on applications, speeding up approvals and reducing delays, for a better experience for both residents and builders. The pilot also aims to reduce city staff’s workload by hours each week, freeing up time they can spend serving residents more directly.
“I don’t think it’s a crazy statement to say that permitting controls the speed of innovation and development in a city,” Caines said, reflecting on a common desire among residents and businesses to have a planning department that offers certainty and speed in the permitting process.
The initial testing phase, taking place this fall, will be completed by city staff who will use the software while still manually checking applications to maintain human oversight — a best practice for responsible AI use.
Internal testing is expected to be completed this fall, after which the city may be able to roll out the new process to ADU applicants themselves next year. The results of this pilot will determine whether this AI tool could be extended to other permitting application processes in the future, such as those for single-family homes. This expansion could prove beneficial in quickly responding to climate disasters like the L.A. fires.
“We are dedicated to taking any guesswork out of the permitting process, helping builders and residents move quickly with clarity and confidence,” Chris Burton, PBCE director, said in a statement.
San Jose isn’t the first city to introduce artificial intelligence into its planning department. Bellevue, Wash., has been using an AI-powered “smart assistant” tool by Govstream.ai to speed up its permitting processes. For now, planning staff is using the AI assistant to look up parcel-specific zoning rules and then generate draft responses to resident inquiries, with citations to the development code.
Currently, San Jose is testing software from CivCheck for its pilot but may work with other companies in the future.
The state is facing a housing crisis, as is the case across the U.S., and some experts argue AI could help — although rent-setting algorithms have faced pushback.
This AI pilot is only one of the ways that PBCE is working to speed up the building process. Other methods include preapproved ADU plans, certifying building professionals through a program that allows participants to bypass the Building Division’s standard plan review process, and providing a building fee estimator to residents.
Another recent San Jose pilot focused on efficiency — the use of AI for bus route optimization — sped up bus rides by an average of about 20 percent, Tasha Dean, chief communications officer for the mayor’s office, said recently.