Earlier this month, the City of Louisville, Ky., announced a partnership with Govstream.ai, a technology company that utilizes AI to speed up the permitting process, reflecting a broader national push to utilize AI to accelerate permitting and approvals.
Municipalities are increasingly under pressure from their constituents and the federal government to streamline residential development amid a national housing affordability crisis. Increasingly, local governments see AI as a tool that can achieve this goal, with the potential to reduce approval timelines by days or weeks.
Louisville, with a population of roughly 640,000, will work with Govstream.ai on a pilot project that analyzes city codes, GIS data, and permit history to automate much of the review process.
“By responsibly leveraging AI, we can use the data we have to alleviate pain points that cause people delays – costing them time and money. This is a huge step forward in making our city more effective, efficient and responsive,” Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said in a statement.
A growing national trend
An increasing number of municipalities from coast to coast are testing out pilot programs that utilize AI to streamline the permitting and zoning approval process. These localities include Austin, Seattle, Honolulu, Boston, Los Angeles and Harris County, Texas, home to Houston and many adjacent suburban communities.
These quicker approvals can save builders and developers valuable time and money. Frank Martz, City Manager for Altamonte Springs, Fla., which previously tested a similar pilot program, told The Builder’s Daily that the technology allowed his team to accomplish tasks that used to take a week in about 3 to 4 minutes.
A spokesperson for Hernando County, Fla., which also adopted a similar AI pilot program, said that the “city’s zoning review times have decreased significantly, in some cases by several weeks.”
Faster approval timelines would be a welcome boost for homebuilders seeking to improve efficiency amid tightening margins. The technology could also allow local governments to save taxpayer money, to work with fewer employees or to direct personnel to work on other projects and initiatives.
Housing affordability ranks as a top political priority
The Senate’s ROAD to Housing Act, which enjoys broad bipartisan support, aims to reduce regulatory barriers and streamline housing development. The bill, among many other actions, would incentivize local governments to build more housing and streamline residential approvals by rewarding municipalities that make it easier to build.
The federal government would accomplish this goal by allocating more Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to municipalities that have streamlined housing development.
“If you are a housing-constrained community and you’re not adding more housing, you’re going to lose some of your CDBG money. And what’s going to happen is that CDBG money is going to be reallocated to the cities that are building more housing,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, a co-sponsor of the legislation, during a National Housing Conference event in December.
States are also pushing for measures to streamline residential development, as the cost of housing becomes a top issue for voters nationwide. A 2024 survey from Hit Strategies found that 87% of voters considered the cost of housing to be a major problem in their state.
A more recent Reuters/Ipsos poll that was conducted in December reported that the high cost of housing and rent was the second most important cost-of-living issue among voters, ranking only behind the cost of healthcare.
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