Everett Tests AI Permit Intake to Cut ADU Building Permit Waits

The city of Everett wants to take months off the wait for a backyard cottage permit. On Monday, Mayor Cassie Franklin and former Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire unveiled a pilot program that uses AI to screen accessory dwelling unit (ADU) building permit applications in Everett, Washington, before they are filed, The Everett Herald reported.

The system was built by Govstream.ai, a Seattle startup. It tells an applicant which permits and documents a specific project needs, based on the property and the city's rules, and checks that the required information is there before the application reaches city staff.

The problem: almost every ADU permit comes back

City staff studied 281 ADU and DADU (detached ADU) applications filed between January 2023 and June 2026, according to the Everett Post. About 95% needed at least one correction from permitting staff.

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The median application took 252 days, about eight months, to reach permit issuance. It went through four review rounds, each lasting a median of 45 days.

"We looked at our performance," Franklin said of those applications, "and it really wasn't pretty. That's simply not acceptable."

Franklin told the Everett Post the goal is to bring an ADU approval down from 250 days to 90 days.

How it works

Govstream.ai founder and CEO Saf Rabah said the program translates city codes and checklists into plain wording and can work in eight languages. On the city's side, a pre-application screening flags small mistakes and typos so staff can catch them before an application is officially submitted.

Rabah said the AI can only make suggestions, and people still make every decision. He said it draws only on the city's own building codes and checklists, not the open internet. "It's not a probabilistic model, it just executes the city's rules," he told the Herald.

Franklin said Everett will keep the same number of permitting staff. Gregoire put it in builder terms: "time is money."

Who is paying

Challenge Seattle, the CEO group Gregoire runs, put about $130,000 toward the project, and the city added about $70,000, the Herald reported.

What's next

The two outlets describe the rollout a little differently. The Everett Post reports a pilot opens to "selected beta testers" in November. The Herald reports a public launch in spring 2027, with more permit types added by 2028. Franklin told the Everett Post the city expects to expand the tool to single-family homes and other residential housing types after the ADU launch, and Gregoire said she hopes it reaches commercial and industrial permits too.

Rabah said statewide, "about 70% of permit applications are incomplete the first time."

The pilot builds on Everett's pre-approved ADU plans, which the city started accepting earlier this year.

Sources

• Everett unveils AI program to speed up ADU permits, The Everett Herald
• Everett plans to shrink building permit approval times by half with AI, Everett Post