Logo courtesy of Placer County

AUBURN, CA (MPG) - The Placer County Building Services Division will temporarily shut down its online building permit submittal system Jan. 1–4, 2026, as part of an upgrade aimed at improving the permitting process.

The outage will affect Accela Citizen Access, the county’s online portal for building permit applications. County officials said the upgrade will enhance digital submittals and streamline the plan review process once the system is back online.

The improvements include concurrent plan reviews, allowing each review cycle to be routed to all relevant county divisions at the same time. Officials said this change is expected to increase efficiency and reduce overall review times.

“We appreciate our customers’ patience during this scheduled outage as we make these improvements,” said Randall Befort, Placer County building services manager. “These upgrades are focused on creating a more efficient, transparent and user-friendly permit process that will ultimately provide better service to our applicants.”

Applicants will also receive a single, consolidated comment letter that clearly outlines requirements from all reviewing departments, replacing multiple communications. In addition, the upgraded system will provide greater transparency by allowing applicants to track the status of their projects in real time and review comments through the Accela portal as they are generated.