Albemarle County is excited to announce that our online permitting and licensing portal, Civic Access, is upgrading to a completely redesigned experience. Here's what's changing and what you can expect.

A Fresh, Modern Look and Feel

• Smarter Dashboard: A redesigned, personalized home page greets you at sign-in with your available actions — inspections, invoices, and applications — all in one place.
• Streamlined Navigation: A new collapsible left-side menu makes it easier to navigate between inspections, projects, businesses, invoices, and more.
• Dark Mode: Enable dark mode from the Theme menu for a more comfortable viewing experience, day or night.
• Mobile-Friendly Design: Inspections, applications, and recording details for a fully optimized mobile experience, so you can manage requests on the go.

Faster, Easier Applications

• Simplified Contacts: Select one or more billing contacts and assign multiple roles to a single contact during your application — no more duplicate entries.
• Auto-Save Drafts: Your work is automatically saved as you go, so an unexpected disconnect won't cause you to lose your progress.
• Improved Drafts: More stable drafts and the ability to save file attachments before you submit.

Better Record & Project Visibility

• Your Work: Related permits, plans, and applications tied to the same address or contact automatically grouped for an at-a-glance view of everything happening on a property.
• Favorites: Mark the records you care about most for quick access anytime.
• Fly-Out Details Panel: Click into any record for key details without leaving your current screen.
• Easier Printing: Print invoices and inspection reports directly from the record — no extra navigation required.

Enhanced Inspections

• More Flexible Requests: Request inspections directly from an existing record and add multiple inspections in a single request.

What to Know Before You Log In

• Current registration remains: You won't need to take any action — your account carries over automatically.
• Old links will redirect: Your saved bookmarks and links will redirect you to the new experience, though links to a specific tab within a record will open to that record's main page.

We're confident this new experience will make it faster and easier to apply for permits, request inspections, and manage your projects online. Thank you for your patience during the upgrade — we look forward to you exploring the new Civic Access soon.

If you need assistance with the Civic Access Portal, please contact the Community Development Department by phone at 434-243-7923 or email applicationservices@albemarle.org.