Portland’s Bureau of Development Services has City Council‘s approval to pursue a $4.5 million, five-year contract with a software vendor to upgrade the city’s permit-tracking software.

The contract would extend the city’s relationship with CSDC Inc., of Austin, Texas. BDS has used the company’s AMANDA software since at least 2009. Other city bureaus also use AMANDA, according to a draft ordinance presented to the City Council.

The existing contract will expire on Aug. 31. The new contract would be in effect Sept. 1, 2018 to Aug. 31, 2023. The contract has a five-year option.

AMANDA is part of the Portland Online Permitting System, or POPS. The system will transition BDS from working with paper plans to electronic plans. BDS Director Rebecca Esau has said the project is her top priority.

“It is horribly inefficient to work with paper plans,” Esau told the 91��Ƶ in December. “I wish that we would have done it years ago. But we’re doing it now.”

The system is designed to make permitting easier for large commercial customers who already have electronic plans. It will also allow some steps of the permitting process to be done remotely, eliminating the need for an estimated 33,000 vehicle trips annually to BDS’ downtown office.

The City Council issued authorization to move forward with the software upgrade during its meeting on Thursday.

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The cost of the long-running effort to streamline and digitize the city’s slow permitting system has again been revised upward.

The latest segment of the Portland Online Permitting System is now expected to cost $1.6 million, or $100,000 more than the previous estimate.

The City Council was updated on this by members of the Technology Oversight Committee on Wednesday at a quarterly check-in hearing.

For years, POPS, formerly known as the Information Technology Advancement Project (ITAP), has experienced cost overruns and missed deadlines. It’s already cost the city $12 million, and two city staffers involved with the project no longer work for the city – former Bureau of Development Services director Paul Scarlett and former ITAP project manager Rebecca Sponsel.

Last fall, the city severed ties with its first vendor for the project, Sierra Systems.

The project is still considered to be in the “discovery” phase.

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The city of Portland has hit the “reset” 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 “assessment” 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.

“Frankly, it is rebranding,” she said. “And also frankly, ‘Portland Online Permitting System’ means a whole lot more to people (than) whatever ‘ITAP’ was.”

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.

“Over the next five months, the team is really going to be focused on this discovery project,” he said. “It 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.”

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

“As you can see, it’s a fairly complex project,” said Wilfred Pinfold, a retired Intel director now serving on the city’s Technology Oversight Committee. “It’s been a tough year to get here, but we’re now in a good position.”

Pinfold updated the Portland City Council on projects overseen by the TOC. He said he expects POPS’ progress ahead to be “incremental.”

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

“It has been a tough year for the ITAP project,” Pinfold said. “I 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.”

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.

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