Case Study: Fairfax County achieves streamlined land management and faster permitting with Accela

Efficiency Through Integration Streamlining Land Management Processes in Fairfax County

Fairfax County faced an aging 25-year-old, eight-system land management infrastructure that was costly to maintain and difficult to scale for modern citizen and staff expectations. The county needed a more unified, intuitive way to manage land use activities across multiple agencies, and it adopted Accela’s Civic Platform to replace disconnected tools and reduce technical debt.

Accela helped Fairfax County implement PLUS, a single land use system that streamlined workflows for more than 220 permitting processes across six agencies, with GIS, mobile inspections, and Power BI reporting built in. The result was faster intake, review, and approvals; less foot traffic through electronic submissions; and greater speed, consistency, accountability, and transparency, contributing to Fairfax County being ranked No. 1 for the best building permitting process in the U.S. by the NAIOP Research Foundation.

Fairfax County

Randhir Singh

Director of Land Planning & Development Systems Branch