The city of Novato has launched a new online portal for managing permits. The platform brings together all permitting, planning, engineering, and code enforcement services in one place.

The new Novato Permits portal provides step-by-step guidance and outlines all required documents. Residents, contractors, and businesses can apply for permits, pay fees online, schedule inspections, track progress, and view permit records.

Users can also report code concerns and view other active projects happening in their neighborhood and around town.

Permit applications submitted before Sept. 25 have already been migrated into the new system, and applicants can register to track their status.

For additional questions, people can contact Community Development staff or phone (415) 899-8989.

Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.