Alameda County Permit Portal

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2016

Alameda County Permit Portal, available at http://permit.acgov.org is a one-stop shop for licenses and permits. The portal is an online guide that helps residents and businesses complete permits for major property upgrades, start businesses or undertake many other tasks regulated by local government. It results from a concerted long-term effort by Alameda County in finding innovative new ways to deliver traditional government services that enhance access and efficiency. This is a result of regional collaboration among Alameda County, cities and special districts. The portal benefits from an unusual amount of cross-agency and jurisdictional collaboration. Not only did employees from several Alameda County departments contribute to its design, but the portal provides information about all locally issued permits – not just those required by Alameda County, but by cities and special districts as well. This portal also is the first new tool to result from Alameda County’s groundbreaking partnership with technology giant Google through their Government Innovation Labs project in 2015. The project was designed to bring to government the same “moonshot’’ thinking that Google brings to its constant search for new innovations. Google developers who assisted in the six-week partnership with Alameda County found the portal to be exactly the type of “10X’’ idea that government agencies should be pursuing to enhance services in the Technology Age.