EO39 instructs all state agencies, generally, to remove outdated approvals; add approvals that have multiple steps to VPT; cut permit approval times through streamlining; and improve the digital user experience for permit applicants on VPT. The platform is a multiagency website designed to simplify and speed up permit application processes and reduce wait times for people seeking licenses and other approvals.
“Virginia is the only state that has built a government-wide platform that includes permit applications,” Reeve Bull, director of the Virginia Office of Regulatory Management (ORM) said in a recent news release. “Executive Order 39 takes this pioneering work to the next level, tasking agencies with bringing the few remaining permit types online and speeding up processing times across the board.”
The VPT platform builds on the success of the Department of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) Permitting Enhancement and Evaluation Platform (PEEP), first launched as a pilot program in 2022. PEEP helps track steps and pinpoint timeframes for permit applications undergoing DEQ approval. VPT took DEQ’s success with PEEP and applied those lessons to other Virginia agencies. VPT now features six key agencies: DEQ, the Virginia departments of Energy, Transportation, Conservation and Recreation, and Health, and the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. These entities handle the bulk of state-issued permits.
The site offers several additional features to simplify the user experience, including a video tutorial to help users navigate the platform, a full acronym library to decode complex government terminology, a chart view of the permitting process, and a comprehensive search function that lets users find permits through a variety of criteria.
According to the executive order, “Virginia agencies issue more than 400,000 permits, licenses, certifications, and other forms of state agency approvals per year, including over 600 different types of approvals.”
Considering this, Bull said it’s extremely beneficial for applicants to be able to visit one single website to access permit statuses across multiple agencies. The VPT platform displays various pieces of critical information, highlighting each step of the process, application timelines, and deciphering who is responsible for moving an application forward, whether it’s a state agency or an applicant.
“The main objectives of the website were to increase transparency and efficiency in the permit application process because applicants, including businesses, individuals, and local governments, would apply for a permit but then would find themselves in the dark regarding the status of their application,” Bull told Government Technology. “Virginia residents and stakeholders now have near-real-time access to the vast majority of permit applications currently being processed by Virginia agencies.”
VPT “has been a game changer,” Bull said, not only because of its impact on the user experience, but on internal agency workloads. Employees can use its data to better track processes from beginning to end, promoting accountability as well as transparency.
As VPT continues to evolve, it is expected to include even more types of approvals. EO39 specifically directs state agencies to report by mid-December the number of applications they process per year, processing times and fees or charges; catalog approvals with target processing times of 15 or more days and more than one procedural step; and work with the Virginia Information Technologies Agency to plan their incorporation into VPT. Agency improvement plans are due by Dec. 13, and reports on achievements are due by Jan. 31 and quarterly thereafter.
