{"id":387357,"date":"2025-11-18T10:33:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T10:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/387357\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T10:33:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T10:33:20","slug":"harris-county-will-implement-ai-to-expedite-permitting-process-for-new-builds-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/387357\/","title":{"rendered":"Harris County will implement AI to expedite permitting process for new builds \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Construction<\/p>\n

Macie Kelly \/ Houston Public Media <\/p>\n

Citing successes in Austin and Los Angeles, Harris County leaders last week approved a two-year pilot program to use artificial intelligence to speed up the permitting process for new construction projects in the Houston area.<\/p>\n

The AI implementation will act as a precursor for evaluating new building permits in Harris County. Officials with the county\u2019s engineering department said it would make the process quicker, more accurate and easier for the public to use.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Samuel Pe\u00f1a, who serves in the department, said the technology will be used as an automated completeness screening for permits before they go up for review in front of an actual person. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping that it cuts down in the number of times that we go back and forth with the applicant to make sure that it\u2019s complete, that the application is complete before we review it,\u201d Pe\u00f1a said. <\/p>\n

County commissioners first directed the department to develop a plan for using AI software for permitting on Sept. 9. Pe\u00f1a during that meeting said that while permit volumes have increased about 20% in the past three years, staffing levels have remained flat. <\/p>\n

Engineering department staff conducted site visits and meetings with city of Austin and Los Angeles County staff to understand the scope of AI software tools and the success of the technology implementation. But research conducted by Harris County staff found that few counties across the United States utilize AI for permitting processes, according to county documents. <\/p>\n

RELATED: Galveston City Council greenlights pilot program for AI traffic system designed to ease island congestion<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

In Austin, city council members approved a more than $3.5 million contract for the use of artificial intelligence to evaluate building plans last year. City officials there said it would significantly cut down on the amount of time<\/a> spent reviewing the permits.<\/p>\n

The cost of implementing AI for permitting in Harris County would be about $1 million annually, according to commissioners court documents.<\/p>\n

Mike Etienne, who serves as the chief of planning and development services for Harris County’s engineering department, said the department is discussing a plan to establish a public-facing dashboard for stronger transparency about the status of the county\u2019s permitting processes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHarris County is growing very fast,\u201d Etienne said. \u201cWe are growing at about 100,000 residents per year. So we think using AI will speed up the permitting process, which will ultimately help meet the housing demand and economic development.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commissioners signaled support for the use of artificial intelligence. Commissioner Lesley Briones raised questions about the success of the programs in other cities, and asked engineering staff to work with the county fire marshal\u2019s office, which has also implemented AI practices. <\/p>\n

Commissioner Adrian Garcia, who supported the use of the technology, said he had previously discussed the possibility of merging the county\u2019s permitting process with the city of Houston\u2019s process during the tenure of former Mayor Sylvester Turner. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have things like AI as a conduit to the process, it makes the idea of it better,\u201d he said. \u201cAlbeit we don\u2019t have near the amount of regulations that the city of Houston has to contend with, but by the same token, we get this right, the idea of merging the business of the city and the county together, I think makes it much more realistic and achievable and less painless.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Macie Kelly \/ Houston Public Media Citing successes in Austin and Los Angeles, Harris County leaders last week…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":387358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[64,96993,2556,16721,6386,184721,79778,184722,4345,425,50,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-387357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-construction-projects","10":"tag-development","11":"tag-engineering","12":"tag-harris-county","13":"tag-harris-county-building-permits","14":"tag-harris-county-commissioners-court","15":"tag-harris-county-engineering-department","16":"tag-houston","17":"tag-local","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-texas","20":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115570254034467752","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}