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Salinas staff outlines housing-production dashboard design; beta testing by internal planning and permits teams
Summary
Staff described a draft housing-production dashboard on Sept. 30 that will centralize project status, unit counts and affordability filters and will draw data from the city’s permitting and entitlement systems.
City of Salinas staff on Sept. 30 presented an initial framework for a housing-production dashboard designed to track housing projects from entitlement through construction and to provide filters for tenure type, affordability category and council district.
Vincent Montgomery, planning manager, said the department is building a dynamic, user-friendly platform that will centralize project-status data, reduce manual entry by automating data pulls from permitting and entitlement systems, and allow exports for council and public reporting. Montgomery said the department is prioritizing clarity, defensibility and version control, and plans peer review and quality-assurance protocols.
Luis Rodriguez, community development analyst in the housing division, explained the internal criteria for beta testers: staff familiar with the city’s key software systems. “We assessed internally who had the most familiarity with the software,” Rodriguez said, identifying Project Docs for permit intake and TrackIt for entitlement tracking. He said the beta group includes senior staff from permits and buildings, current planning and public-works GIS.
Montgomery said the initial release will be internal; staff plan to solicit community feedback and provide training before a public-facing version is published.
Council members asked about export features and whether the dashboard will track permit start-to-finish timelines so the committee can identify delays. Council member David Salazar said measuring start-to-finish timelines would be especially useful to identify bottlenecks in permitting.
A member of the public offered to assist with community outreach once the tool is ready, suggesting short-form videos or other explanatory materials to help residents use the dashboard.
Why it matters: A consolidated, public-facing dashboard could make project status and affordability metrics easier for council, staff and residents to monitor and could inform efforts to streamline permitting and track delivery of affordable units.
What’s next: Staff will finish internal beta testing, refine the dashboard according to internal feedback and plan community-facing training and outreach when a public version is ready.
