Mecklenburg County Seeks to Assist Customers in Managing Permit Holds


For anyone building in Mecklenburg County, negotiating the removal of Permit Holds can be one of the biggest frustrations in the long and complicated permitting and inspection process. You’re coming to the finish line on a project and suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a hold is placed on your permit without any details of who was responsible and how you can get it released. Sound familiar?

To complicate things further, the County has been in the process of a software upgrade to its POSSE operating system since February of this year, and will not likely be complete until at least January of 2016. That means all of the industry-generated recommendations to improve permit notifications and other aspects of the process will not even be implemented until the middle of next year.

The good news is that once the changes have been made and the system is fully operational, the process should become a lot easier to manage. The bad news is that we are all stuck in a bit of “hold limbo” for at least the next six months. County staff has said, however, they are committed to help during the transition.

Mecklenburg County officials recently unveiled a process by which any member of the public can search for holds by address or tax parcel. Simply go to http://webpermit.mecklenburgcountync.gov and click on “View Permits” in the upper left corner of the page.The information displayed includes the hold issuing agency, telephone number, staff member who issued the hold, the reason for the hold, and a specific note about the hold. While the system does not yet provide an email notification to the permit holder, it at least should help make it a little easier to resolve the problem.

REBIC also learned that, during the system upgrade process, a glitch sometimes occurs whereby correct holds are placed and then for some reason they are also applied on other projects incorrectly for the same permit holder. IT staff is currently conducting tests to try to solve the problem. If you are experiencing this issue or any other significant problem related to holds, please contact Ebenezer Gujjarlapudi, Director of the Land Use & Environmental Services Agency, at [email protected].

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