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The city of Portland has hit the 鈥渞eset鈥� button on the effort to streamline its costly and circuitous building permit process, bringing in new personnel and even renaming the project.

The Information Technology Advancement Project (ITAP) is now the Portland Online Permitting System (POPS). It’s currently in a six-month 鈥渁ssessment鈥� phase to examine what has worked and where the project went wrong, according to Jen Clodius, senior management analyst for the Office of Management and Finance.

鈥淔rankly, it is rebranding,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd also frankly, 鈥楶ortland Online Permitting System’ means a whole lot more to people (than) whatever 鈥業TAP’ was.鈥�

The project will now be overseen by Laurie Levy (pronounced Lev-I), a former manager at the Bureau of Technology Services. Also, both the Bureau of Development Services and the BTS will guide the project. Other staffing changes could come at the close of the discovery phase. It’s also possible the project could be broken into smaller, more manageable pieces.

A rebranded system should provide users a more positive experience, said Jeff Baer, head of BTS.

鈥淥ver the next five months, the team is really going to be focused on this discovery project,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t will thoroughly vet the status of work that’s been done to date. We’re going to establish very strong planning and governance structure, and look at options as we move forward.鈥�

POPS is intended to digitize all the city’s permit records and allow online access to case management documents.

鈥淎s you can see, it’s a fairly complex project,鈥� said Wilfred Pinfold, a retired Intel director now serving on the city’s Technology Oversight Committee. 鈥淚t’s been a tough year to get here, but we’re now in a good position.鈥�

Pinfold updated the Portland City Council on projects overseen by the TOC. He said he expects POPS’ progress ahead to be 鈥渋ncremental.鈥�

The anticipated project completion date was pushed back several times, and the budget has swollen from $8 million to nearly $12 million.

鈥淚t has been a tough year for the ITAP project,鈥� Pinfold said. 鈥淚 feel like the right things have been done, and I’m feeling that this is the first time the TOC has been able to come to this table optimistic about the ITAP project.鈥�

Compounding the difficulties is the fact that many city offices are affected. Employees ranging from fire inspectors to water inspectors are involved in the permit process.

Another problem is that technology changes fast, and much has changed in the five years since the project began. The goals for ITAP were so lofty, Clodius said, that it’s likely the system would have been outdated as soon as it opened to the public.

Last summer the city severed ties with its contractor, Sierra Systems.

Portland’s former ITAP manager, Rebecca Sponsel, no longer works for the city.