{"id":459951,"date":"2026-10-08T09:09:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T09:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/459951\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T09:09:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T09:09:37","slug":"city-council-approves-new-permitting-software-potentially-driving-down-housing-costs-the-daily-texan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/459951\/","title":{"rendered":"City Council approves new permitting software, potentially driving down housing costs \u2013 The Daily Texan"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Austin City Council approved two contracts worth nearly $60 million to replace the software the city uses to process permits during its Sept. 24 meeting, a move which a city council member said could speed up housing construction and drive down costs for residents.<\/p>\n

Permitting software is used by governments to track applications for permits and adherence to them, according to Granicus<\/a>, a company that develops software for government agencies. Austin\u2019s previous permitting software did not use AI, but the new contracts will.<\/p>\n

For 20 years, the city used a case management system called the \u201cAMANDA\u201d system. The system \u201cno longer meets the need\u201d of city staff nor the Austin community, wrote Maggie Holman, public information and marketing program manager for the City of Austin, in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis new permitting software will replace our current AMANDA system with a simpler, more responsive tool that brings all departments and processes onto a single platform,\u201d Holman wrote.<\/p>\n

The first contract authorizes up to $28.1 million for Clariti Cloud, Inc., a company that handles the permitting software for major cities like Los Angeles and Phoenix, to support the city\u2019s permitting, licensing and land management operations, including the processes used to review and manage development applications. The contract has an initial term of three years with six potential year-long extensions.<\/p>\n

The second contract authorizes up to $31.2 million for implementing the city\u2019s enterprise case management system and maintenance services, also in collaboration with Clariti Cloud, Inc., which will handle licensing, permitting, inspection and enforcement processes. This contract has an initial term of three years with two potential year-long extensions.<\/p>\n

Students and advocacy groups have continuously raised concerns<\/a> regarding affordable housing in the West Campus area. Zohaib \u201cZo\u201d Qadri, Austin City Council member for District 9 who represents UT and West Campus, wrote in a statement that the city\u2019s update to its permitting software is long overdue.<\/p>\n

\u201cRetiring Austin\u2019s existing permitting software system and investing in new modern technology will ensure speed and reliability for new housing construction,\u201d Qadri wrote. \u201cStreamlining our permitting processes has been one of the key ways we have tried to drive down housing costs in Austin.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Austin resident Philip Fitzgerald said at the city council meeting Sept. 24 that he worried the company\u2019s implementation of AI into its software could cost some Austinites their jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing in a lot of industries that are integrating a lot of these AI products is massive layoffs,\u201d Fitzgerald said. \u201cI\u2019m deeply afraid that by adding another $30 million contract, which is apparently gonna be over nine years potentially, that\u2019s a lot of layoffs that we\u2019re going to be staring down the barrel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holman wrote that the new software will be implemented in phases over the next three years, and because the process is in its early stages, Austin Development Services does not have any more details at this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Austin City Council approved two contracts worth nearly $60 million to replace the software the city uses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-459951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}