Discovering the permit and construction problem
The winning team of the City of Seattle PACT-Athon (Permitting Accountability and Customer Trust Hackathon) wanted to continue their work in creating this app that can help aim to create the solve for the issue of backlog of permitting that City of Seattle has explained exist
Hackathon #2: The PACT-athon (Permitting) The City of Seattle launched the PACT-athon (October 9) to solve a critical housing crisis where construction permitting times had doubled over the last decade due to endless review cycles. Our team attacked the "Garbage In, Garbage Out" root cause by building Pre-Assess, an AI engine that validates architectural plans against the Municipal Code before they ever reach a city reviewer. By pivoting to Google Gemini we successfully triangulated live GIS data with complex zoning laws to generate instant project specific compliance checklists. Securing 3rd Place we proved that an AI "Junior Responder" can filter out bad applications on day one validating the roadmap for our current commercial pilot.
Hackathon #3: The Customer Service Sprint (November 6) Hosted by the City’s Innovation & Performance team, this event challenged 18 teams to fix the "front door" of government by modernizing how residents submit and track service requests. The mandate was to use Open Data to "end the runaround" and build tools that make city services transparent and accessible. Our response, Rainy Day Friend, secured 2nd Place by replacing static forms with a conversational AI "Civic Translator." This solution directly supported the new PACT (Permitting Accountability and Customer Trust) initiative, proving that AI can simplify complex code for residents while generating real-time "trust metrics" for city leaders.
Hosted by the City of Seattle, AI House, and Ada Developers Academy, the PACT-Athon was a call to action for Permitting Accountability and Customer Trust. It wasn't just a competition; it was a rapid deployment environment where developers and policy experts convened to solve immediate civic challenges in 2 hour sprint.
We attacked the "Garbage In, Garbage Out" problem. Instead of just speeding up city reviewers, we built "Pre-Assess"—a tool to validate applications before submission. The goal was "Getting it Right from the Start," ensuring builders submit code-compliant plans on day one
Pivoting from standard tools to Anthropic Claude for better reasoning, we built a system that triangulates data: it takes an address, pulls live GIS/Parcel data, reads the specific Municipal Code (SMC), and generates a strict, project-specific compliance checklist
Securing 3rd Place, "Team Five Star" was recognized for delivering immediate, practical value. The win validated our "Junior Responder" concept—proving that an AI "gatekeeper" can successfully filter out bad applications before they clog the city's workflow, solving the root cause of the delay.
ChatGpt - Custom GPT Model with Actions
The Spin Off Automating the Architects Workflow
During the PACTathon teammate and architect Kevin identified a critical out of scope bottleneck. While the event focused on the City’s permitting issues architects struggle before submission wasting hours manually scraping zoning data from scattered government maps. A Subject Matter Expert confirmed this manual Goal 1 workflow was a major pain point that the main event did not address.
The Solution Seattle Parcel Extraction Agent prior work separate from the current Devpost submission
Andrew Powers took the two hour team sprint philosophy and applied it to a two day solo sprint. Using rapid prototyping he built a custom tool shortly after the event to solve the specific pain point.
Input
A simple address or Parcel PIN
Process
The agent bypasses manual map searches and connects directly to the City’s FeatureServer 2 API triangulating 65 distinct zoning fields including setbacks height limits and lot size.
Output
A structured JSON file that can populate an architect’s Airtable replacing hours of manual data entry with instant precision.
The Result Proof of Proficiency
This build was not about a contract. It was a demonstration of technical competence showing that the Pre Permit approach could be adapted to private sector Goal 1 workflows quickly.
Put in Address
2. Verfies address and Parcel ID
3. Pulls Parcel data from API
4. Allow for JSON Download