The public portal to Westbrook’s online permitting program is now open. With the Municity system now live, contractors will no longer have to stop in to the Land Use Department at Town Hall to file permitting application paperwork.

Contractors can now check on the status of building permits, schedule and monitor the outcome of inspections, and determine next steps, all from a remote computer or tablet.

To enter the Municity public portal, contractors not already registered in the state with Municity need to register and create an account.

“Once a Connecticut contractor is registered in the Municity system, they can use the Municity system in another town without re-registering,” Town Building Official David Maiden explained when describing the system in April.

Since May, the Westbrook building department employees have been quietly testing and learning the system so when it went live, they would be knowledgeable about how it works and able to guide users by answering their questions. Now it’s ready to go live.

“The mechanicals portion of the town’s Municity program will be up and running by the end of August,” said Town Building Official David Maiden.

That means that contractors seeking mechanicals permits—for HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning), plumbing, and electrical work—can now request and track their applications online from any computer by logging into Westbrook’s pages on the Municity system. A credit card payment option was expected to be functioning by the end of August.

“During September, the town will be working with Municity to activate other land use permitting functions including for zoning, health, and building permit applications for new construction and building renovations,” said Maiden.

The Westbrook Board of Selectmen on Jan. 3 approved $28,268 to buy the Municity software program and transfer into the systems’ Westbrook database town GIS map data and historical town permit records from 2012 to the present. The town’s annual maintenance and licensing fee to use the cloud-based application is $2,901.

Old Saybrook Municity Page Coming

At press time, the Old Saybrook online permitting page in Municity was not yet open for business.

The Old Saybrook Building Department’s contract with Municity included the uploading of more years of historical building permit data than Westbrook. As a result, Old Saybrook’s public portal page is not yet ready to open to the contractor public.