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Allentown moves to online permitting to ease process
Stacy Wescoe//April 25, 2023//
Listen to this articleStarting May 1, the City of Allentown will be transitioning to a new licensing and permitting system, Energove, which it said will modernize the way individuals, businesses and organizations can do business with the city.
According to a press release from the city’s administration, Energov is an online platform that allows constituents to apply, submit, and pay for such things as licenses, permits, and land development reviews.
Currently such business is done on paper and is manually processed.
The self-service portal system also offers real-time ‘application tracking’ which aims to increase process transparency, which will advise applicants of the status of licenses, permits, and land development reviews.
Using Energov will also, for the first time, give the city the ability to accept all major debit and credit cards citywide for any city-related fees, in-person or online.
However, there is a convenience fee of 2.90% plus a 25-cent transaction fee for every payment made on a debit or credit card.
Because of the transition the administration did warn that there will be a service disruption at the city customer counters including a 3-day closure of the 3rd and 4th floors of City Hall and the 3rd floor of Bridgeworks from April 26 through April 28.
Time sensitive documents may be dropped off at the front desk at City Hall.
Impacted City Bureaus include Building Safety and Standards, Environmental Health, Planning and Zoning, Engineering, Sweep, Fire, and Revenue and Audit (limited to licenses).
During this transition timeframe, cash will not be accepted by these bureaus. Only payments made by check or money order will be accepted this week and will be processed after the Energov launch on May 1.
The software is facilitated by Tyler Technologies’ Enterprise Permitting & Licensing Software powered by Energov, which improves municipal workflow experience around planning, licensing, permitting, regulatory management, inspections, and code enforcement.
