Greeley, CO Embraces a Digital Future with CentralSquare’s Community Development

Greeley, Colorado, is a city of about 112,000 people roughly 60 miles north of Denver. The city tracks building permits and projects in Community Development, and it wanted a partner that shared its vision for a system that could be used citywide. Mike Giroux, business analyst for the City of Greeley, says the city found that partner, and about 150 people now use the system.

The biggest change was going paperless. Paper applications are now digitized, and Giroux estimates the city is about 95 to 99 percent paperless, which means the city no longer needs storage for mountains of paper files. Hours changed too. The city moved from eight hours a day, Monday through Friday, to 24/7, 365 days a year. Applicants can submit at 2 a.m. and pay by credit card or eCheck. Giroux estimates that about 95 percent of payments now come in online, compared with nearly all collected in-house before.

Giroux’s advice for other agencies is to think outside the box. Even when a process has always worked one way, Community Development can speed it up if you look at it differently.