Case Study: City of Weston achieves touchless, cloud-based permitting with Accela — 87.5% fewer in-person visits and 80% faster plan reviews

Touchless Technology – Realizing the Benefits of SaaS Solutions in Weston, Florida

The City of Weston, Florida—consistently ranked among the best places to live—faced an outdated, paper-based planning and permitting process that required nearly 200 daily in‑office visits and heavy IT maintenance. To improve constituent service delivery, reduce staff workload, and increase resilience against disruptions like COVID‑19, the city set out to modernize its systems and move away from on‑prem infrastructure.

Weston implemented Accela Planning, Accela Building and Accela Short‑Term Rental, migrated to a Microsoft Azure‑hosted SaaS model, and adopted Power BI for reporting. The changes cut in‑person foot traffic by 87.5%, repurposed roughly 75% of permit technicians’ time toward quality assurance and strategic work, reduced plan review turnaround times by about 80% (with some reviews completed in a day), lowered datacenter and upgrade burdens, and improved payment security and operational visibility.

City of Weston

Tony Hernandez

Software Developer