For cities
Your applicants show up ready.
Your portal takes the application. We prepare what goes in it. It costs the city nothing.
From one board’s minutes, this year:
- A case called with nobody present to speak for it.
- A fence built without approval because the owner “relied on his contractor.”
- Two requests denied, then re-filed and re-heard a month later.
- The board asking, again, for photos, drawings and neighbor letters.
Every one of those is a continuance, a re-hearing, or a call to the clerk.
What the city gets
A precedent index
Every decision your board has made, by project type, with the vote and the minutes. Staff, board and residents can all see it. Brecksville’s is live.
A pre-application guide
Your deadlines, fees, drawing rules and meeting dates, in one place, in plain words, one click from your portal.
Complete applications
Residents who want help pay us $199. They file your form filled in, a scale sketch on an overhead of the lot, a practical-difficulty statement that cites your board’s own decisions, and show up with a one-pager.
What we ask
- A link on your Board of Zoning Appeals page.
- Twenty minutes with whoever fields the applications.
No contract, no fee, no software to install. Your records are already public; we read them, you keep them.
Questions
- Are you coaching people to beat the board?
- No. We show them what the board has already decided and what it asks for. A complete, honest application is easier to say yes or no to.
- Is the city endorsing a private service?
- The link goes to the index of your own public record. The paid packet is the resident’s choice, and the page says so.
- What does this cost the city?
- Nothing now. If staff want more later, such as search across all boards and years, we’ll talk then.
- Which cities?
- Any city that publishes agendas and minutes on CivicClerk. Brecksville, Ohio is first: 28 decisions since last November, 24 approvals, already indexed.