SimpliCity Joins DIGITAL to Assess B.C. Municipalities’ Digital Readiness for Streamlining Housing Permits

A province-wide survey led by industry and municipal partners aims to bring clarity to the digital permitting processes and technologies used by municipalities.

VANCOUVER, BC, CANADA, April 2, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- ClarityBC is a new research initiative to assess the digital readiness of British Columbia’s municipalities in order to help modernize housing permitting and accelerate housing production. The resulting Housing Permit Digital Readiness Report will examine how digital tools and workflows are currently used, and highlight opportunities to streamline permitting, reduce delays, and improve service delivery for staff and citizens.

SimpliCity Digital is collaborating on this initiative with project lead Radical I/O Technology, the District of North Vancouver, the City of Salmon Arm, and DIGITAL, Canada’s Global Innovation Cluster for digital technologies. Together, the team will gather insights into the challenges municipalities face in digitizing and improving their housing permitting processes.

"Increasing the efficiency of housing permitting is crucial to addressing the ongoing housing crisis in our province," said Briana Sim, CEO of SimpliCity and COO of Radical I/O. "Municipalities are eager to modernize, but they need clear insights into what works and what doesn’t. ClarityBC combines research and real-world experience, while also giving us a chance to demonstrate how intuitive, citizen-focused technology can support the future of permitting and other digital services. We’re interested to learn from the final report and use the insights to shape the evolution of our platform."

SimpliCity’s involvement in ClarityBC reflects its ongoing commitment to helping Canadian municipalities deliver better digital services. This initiative also highlights key elements of the SimpliCity platform—including its composable CMS, website hosting, and forms functionality, which powers the province-wide survey. As the platform expands in 2025 to support the public-facing and self-service aspects of permitting, along with vendor-agnostic integrations with existing permitting systems, the insights gathered through this project will help ensure SimpliCity’s future features align with the needs of municipal staff and their communities.

With deep expertise in municipal digital transformation, Radical I/O (www.radical.io) is leading the research and analysis for the ClarityBC project. Since 2017, the Vancouver-based technology firm has supported B.C. municipalities through consulting, enterprise and solution architecture, design, development, and integration projects. This combination of technical and strategic experience brings valuable insight to the initiative.

"This research is a critical step toward understanding where municipalities are today and the opportunities to evolve," said Ian Sim, CEO of Radical I/O and CTO of SimpliCity. "By combining survey data with on-the-ground experience, we aim to provide a clearer picture of digital readiness across the province. Our goal is to support municipalities in identifying best practices and next steps, particularly those that will accelerate permitting and ultimately increase housing production."

The ClarityBC project is supported in part through the Housing Growth Innovation (HGI) program led by DIGITAL (housing.digitalsupercluster.ca). Funded by the Province of British Columbia through the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs, the HGI program supports projects that leverage technology, foster cross-sector collaboration, and scale sustainable solutions to boost housing production capacity across the province.

"ClarityBC will provide a better understanding of the digital landscape of municipal permitting and uncover where opportunities and solutions are most needed across B.C.," said Amy Vilis, Director of Housing Growth Innovation at DIGITAL. “DIGITAL is proud to support initiatives like ClarityBC to help guide future technology adoption and inform potential strategies that help communities across the province advance their digital readiness and streamline housing approvals."

There is limited centralized insight into how well B.C. municipalities' current housing permitting systems and processes are working. ClarityBC will survey municipalities to identify strengths, challenges, and opportunities for improvement, along with recommendations to improve digital workflows and support provincial housing goals.

“This is a great opportunity to hear from municipalities of different sizes and gain clarity on who’s doing what, and what will benefit them the most,” said Andrew Durnin, Director of Digital Services and IT for the District of North Vancouver (www.DNV.org). “I’m particularly interested in exploring the broader technology landscape and sharing what we learn to support other municipalities.” The District is the largest of the three municipalities located on Metro Vancouver’s North Shore, with a population of just over 96,000 and spanning 16,000 hectares.

While some municipalities have adopted digital permitting systems, many still rely on manual processes. Those using multiple tools often face integration challenges, leading to communication gaps such as delays in application feedback or status updates. Without a clearer understanding of these barriers, municipalities risk investing in costly technologies that may not fully meet their needs or work effectively with existing workflows.

“We’re already facing challenges with tracking and accessing information from our paper-based systems, so learning from others’ experiences will be invaluable as we prepare for a digital future,” said Gary Buxton, Director of Planning and Community Services for the City of Salmon Arm (www.salmonarm.ca). Located along the Trans Canada Highway between Calgary and Vancouver, the City is a rural municipality with a population of just over 19,000, known for its scenic setting amidst mountains, lakes, and valleys.

The ClarityBC project website and survey will launch in early May 2025 and remain open through the end of June. Survey responses will be analyzed over the summer, with a final report released in Fall 2025.

Sign up for updates at claritybc.simplicitycms.ca to be the first to hear when the survey goes live.

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About SimpliCity Digital Inc

SimpliCity (www.simplicitycms.ca) is the only composable CMS purpose-built for municipalities, helping them deliver clear, connected, and citizen-focused digital services. Designed to scale with evolving community needs, SimpliCity offers intuitive content management, flexible integrations, and an API-first architecture to support seamless self-services. SimpliCity is proudly 100% Canadian and woman-led, and was recognized as a 2025 FoundersBeta Top 100 Company and CivStart’s 2024 Pitchfest Audience Choice Winner.

Briana Sim, CEO
SimpliCity
+1 778-817-1746
info@simplicitycms.ca
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