“If your community is growing, your permitting software has to grow with you.” – Matt Kenney, Director of Development for MCCi Community Development
Your municipality is experiencing something remarkable. Development is accelerating, population is rising, and new residents are choosing your community as home. This growth represents everything you’ve worked toward as a public servant.
Yet behind the scenes, your permitting team faces a different reality. Application volumes have doubled. Response times have stretched. Staff spend more hours battling their technology than serving constituents. The government permitting software that once met your needs now creates bottlenecks at every turn.
Growth shouldn’t feel like a burden. When your community development tools can’t keep pace with demand, everyone pays the price: applicants wait longer, staff work harder, and your community’s momentum slows.
Matt Kenney has worked with dozens of municipalities facing this exact challenge. He’s identified six clear indicators that your current permitting software has reached its limits and it’s time to explore better options.
When Legacy Permitting Software Becomes the Bottleneck.
The Challenge: Legacy permitting systems create bottlenecks through poor vendor support, performance issues, inflexible workflows, duplicate data entry, limited mobile access, and costly on-premise servers.
The Solution: Cloud-native platforms like MCCi Community Development offer flexible configuration, automatic security updates, seamless integrations, and true mobile responsiveness that scales with your community.
The Bottom Line: When software limitations waste staff time and frustrate applicants, the real cost is missed economic opportunity and diminished citizen satisfaction.
1. Vendor Support Has Become Unreliable or Nonexistent
Your relationship with your software vendor should be a partnership. When problems arise, you need responsive support from people who understand your specific system. Unfortunately, many permitting departments discover that support quality deteriorates as their software ages.
Security updates represent the most critical concern. Regular patches keep your systems protected against evolving cyber threats. However, vendors often discontinue updates for older platforms, leaving municipalities exposed to ransomware, data breaches, and compliance violations. As your community grows and becomes more visible, it also becomes a more attractive target for malicious actors.
Customer service quality frequently declines alongside security support. Technical personnel may lack familiarity with your specific configuration. Getting anyone on the phone becomes an exercise in patience.
“Municipalities will start having an issue with the software, and then they don’t hear from their support person for a month,” Matt explains.
Processing more building permits than ever before means you’ll encounter more technical questions, not fewer. When support disappears precisely when you need it most, you’re left managing workarounds instead of serving your community.
2. System Performance Degrades Under Current Workload
Remember when your permitting software responded instantly? Those days may feel like ancient history if you’re experiencing performance issues.
Legacy platforms weren’t architected for today’s data volumes. File sizes, user counts, and transaction volumes have exploded compared to what developers anticipated decades ago. Your system begins to lag, crash, or timeout when multiple staff members access it simultaneously. Citizens attempting to submit applications online face error messages and abandoned sessions.
Performance problems compound during peak seasons. Spring construction season arrives, and your entire department braces for the inevitable slowdowns. Inspectors waiting for data to load. Plan reviewers toggling between frozen screens. Citizens calling to ask why the online portal isn’t working.
These aren’t minor inconveniences. Each delay represents real economic impact: construction crews idle, contractors missing deadlines, developers reconsidering future projects. The best permitting software should accelerate growth, not impede it.
3. Configuration Changes Are Impossible or Prohibitively Expensive
Municipal needs evolve constantly. New building codes take effect. Council passes updated regulations. Your community’s development character shifts from single-family residential to mixed-use or multifamily projects.
Matt shares an example from a rapidly expanding Texas town: “They are expecting to double the size of their population in the next five years. They’re building a lot of apartment buildings, so now you’re not just thinking about single families, you’re thinking about multifamily housing. It’s a completely different beast for permits.”
This town needs to implement different workflows for their changing permit types. Their current software, however, offers no path forward.
“If they call their software company and say, ‘Hey, I’d like to have this workflow changed or have it rerouted to do that,’ the company may just say, ‘Our system doesn’t do that. We don’t allow you to make those changes,'” Matt explains.
Smart government permits require flexibility. When your building department adopts new inspection protocols or your planning department needs to track additional data points, your software should adapt. If every change request triggers a lengthy customization process or gets rejected entirely, you’re working with the wrong platform.
Inflexible systems force staff into manual workarounds. Inspectors maintain separate spreadsheets. Permit techs post sticky notes as reminders. Code enforcement officers develop their own tracking methods outside the official system. These workarounds introduce errors, create audit risks, and waste countless staff hours.
4. Staff Enter the Same Information Multiple Times Across Different Systems
Modern permitting operations rely on multiple specialized platforms. Your department likely uses geographic information systems (GIS) for mapping, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for finances, document management for plan storage, and payment processing for fee collection. Many departments also integrate with electronic plan review systems, calendar applications, and citizen communication platforms.
Integration between these systems should happen automatically. Unfortunately, older government permitting software often requires manual data transfer. Staff type the same applicant information into three different systems. They copy and paste addresses between platforms. They manually update status changes across multiple databases.
“Older software wasn’t created with APIs in mind. They’re what’s called a monolith. All the code was put in one place, so when they need to change one thing, they have to rewrite everything,” Matt notes.
This monolithic architecture prevents modern integrations. Each duplicate entry wastes staff time. More importantly, manual data entry introduces errors that cascade through your entire operation. One typo in an address can send inspectors to the wrong location or generate incorrect tax assessments.
The best permitting software eliminates duplicate entry entirely. Data flows automatically between connected systems. Staff enter information once, and it populates everywhere it’s needed. This approach reduces errors, saves time, and allows your team to focus on higher-value work.
5. Mobile Access Is Limited or Frustrating
Your staff don’t work exclusively from desktop computers anymore. Inspectors conduct site visits. Plan reviewers attend pre-application meetings. Directors respond to urgent questions from the field. Code enforcement officers need access while traveling between properties.
“Many municipality workers are always on the go. Sometimes they’re at their desktop where they have two monitors, sometimes on their phone or iPad,” Matt observes.
If your government permitting software requires specific devices or won’t load properly on smartphones, you’ve artificially limited your team’s productivity. Inspectors return to the office to enter notes they should have recorded on-site. Permit technicians can’t answer applicant questions when away from their desks. Directors can’t review urgent applications while attending meetings across town.
Citizens expect mobile functionality too. Today’s applicants want to submit permit applications from their phones, upload documents from tablets, and check status updates during their commute. Systems that require desktop access feel outdated and inaccessible.
Can older platforms add mobile capabilities? Matt is skeptical: “If your interface wasn’t designed to be device-agnostic from the beginning, it’s a big lift to get it that way. It’s not something that a company just wants to bite off and say, ‘Yeah, let’s do this.’ And even if they do, it may always be a little quirky compared with newer software built with mobile devices in mind.”
Mobile-responsive design must be fundamental, not retrofitted.
6. You're Still Managing On-Premise Servers
On-premise servers made sense years ago. Now they represent a significant liability for growing municipalities.
Cloud-based platforms receive automatic security updates. On-premise systems place the burden entirely on your IT team. Every patch requires manual intervention, meaning critical security updates arrive slowly or inconsistently.
“Someone has to upgrade their Windows, someone has to upgrade their SQL Server, someone has to upgrade their firewall,” Matt points out. Beyond hardware costs, you’re paying for specialized IT labor to maintain, monitor, and update servers.
Natural disasters pose another serious risk. Floods, hurricanes, and wildfires can destroy on-premise servers entirely. During disaster recovery periods, when efficient permitting becomes critical for rebuilding efforts, server outages create exactly the wrong kind of delay.
Cloud-based government permitting software eliminates these concerns. Your provider handles security updates and maintenance automatically. Disaster recovery is built into the architecture. Your IT team can focus on strategic initiatives instead of server maintenance.
What Should Growing Municipalities Do Next?
“Our use of the [MCCi] platform has evolved a lot since the beginning, and they’ve kept pace with our needs. I’ve never heard ‘that can’t be done’ from anybody. If we need it, they always find a way.” – Stephan M., County Planner at Pottawatomie County, Kansas
Recognizing these six signs is the first step. Taking action is the second.
Some vendors now offer cloud-based versions of their legacy platforms. While this might seem like a simpler transition, the reality often disappoints. Migrating from on-premise to cloud with the same vendor typically requires a complete re-implementation. Staff must relearn interfaces that differ significantly from what they know. You’ll invest substantial time and resources only to inherit many of the same limitations in a different hosting environment.
Given the investment required for any major software change, exploring modern alternatives makes strategic sense. Today’s best permitting software is built differently from the ground up, designed specifically for how government permitting departments operate in 2025 and beyond.
MCCi Community Development represents this modern approach to smart government permits. Built as a cloud-native platform in 2019, it was architected specifically to address the challenges growing municipalities face:
Scalable Architecture: The platform handles increasing permit volumes and complexity without performance degradation. Whether you’re processing 50 permits monthly or 5,000, response times remain consistent.
Flexible Configuration: Your team can adapt workflows, forms, and processes as your community’s needs change. No vendor dependency for basic modifications. No “our system doesn’t do that” responses.
Proactive Security: Monthly security updates happen automatically. Your data stays protected against evolving threats without manual IT intervention.
Guaranteed Reliability: We commit to 99.5% uptime outside scheduled maintenance. Your permitting operations continue uninterrupted.
API-First Integration: The platform connects with 20+ complementary systems. GIS, ERP, payment processing, document management, and more integrate seamlessly. Staff enter data once and it flows everywhere it’s needed.
True Mobile Responsiveness: Designed from day one for any device. Staff access the full system from desktop, tablet, or smartphone without compromise. Citizens interact with your permitting services from whatever device is convenient.
Your community’s growth is an achievement worth celebrating. Your permitting software should enable that growth, not constrain it. When technology becomes the bottleneck, it’s time to consider better options.