Washington County officials told a development‑industry forum that the county has migrated its permit software to the cloud, plans to expand online permitting, and is coordinating with cities and regional partners to implement new engineering‑review timelines created by Senate Bill 974.

At the forum, Steven Roberts, director of Land Use and Transportation for Washington County, said the event was intended to “share information with our development community” and to strengthen coordination between county staff and city and service‑provider partners.

Carol Johnson, planning and development services manager for Washington County, said the county completed a cloud migration of its Accela platform and is beginning to use new tools such as Accela Insights to publish permit metrics. “Things turned out well and so we've got now access to a lot more functionality with Accela,” Johnson said. She added the county expects a rebranded public portal, formerly Accela Citizen Access, in 2026 and is testing online submittal for Type I land use permits with a target of December for accepting those applications online.

Johnson gave development metrics from the county’s fiscal year ending June 30, 2025: 14,016 building permits issued (up 2 percent from the prior year); single‑family residential permits down 31 percent year over year; commercial tenant improvements up 10 percent; and 45,077 inspections (averaging 172 inspections per day). She also described a new road‑naming process intended to coordinate with the county’s consolidated communications agency to avoid conflicts that could affect emergency response.

On state law changes, Johnson said Washington County is coordinating with Clackamas County and cities in the county to respond to Senate Bill 974, which establishes new engineering‑review timelines. She noted guidance published by the state’s housing accountability and production office and said the new timelines must be implemented by July 1, 2026. “There's a huge effort that is being coordinated by Clackamas County, and we've expanded it to all the cities in Washington County,” Johnson said.

County staff emphasized procedural steps rather than policy decisions at the forum: updates to permit workflows, internal training on new software features, and interjurisdictional coordination to standardize processes for meeting the SB 974 deadlines. No formal actions or votes were taken at the meeting.

The county encouraged developers and practitioners to monitor the Washington County website and the Accela public portal for updates as those systems roll out. Johnson said the county will present portions of a code assessment report at an upcoming technical advisory committee meeting on Oct. 29.