Hanover’s Perspective
Tracking Permits with Virginia State Agencies and Hanover County, VA
The Virginia Permit Transparency (VPT) website, unveiled at the end of January 2024, was created to bring increased transparency and efficiency to the Commonwealth’s permitting processes. VPT provides the public a centralized platform to track the daily status and timeline of critical steps for Commonwealth of Virginia’s permits. Users can search permit applications or filter results by fields such as agency, application number, locality, and more. VPT can be accessed at Permits.Virginia.Gov. Currently, the permits of three agencies are available on the website: Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), Virginia Department of Energy (ENERGY), and the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC). Additional agencies will be added in the coming months. The program was first launched as a pilot program last year at DEQ and has was several awards including the “2023 State Program Innovation Award” from the Environmental Council of the States.
On the local level, the “My Property” page on Hanover County’s website includes links to building permits, property changes and uses most asked questions, deeds & plats, personal property, property assessments, taxes, water and sewer, and zoning. The Property Maps link brings users to the Parcel Map portal that allows for properties to be searched by account number, GPIN (Geographic Parcel Identification Number), house number or road name. Search results provide owner information, zoning, acreage, available utilities, election information, assessments, improvements, and other relevant information. The map feature allows for toggling options of map layers including boundaries, streets, various district overlays, Suburban Service Area and more.
Hanover County commercial and residential permits can be obtained from the Hanover County, VA Government website on the Building Inspections Report & Data page. The current reports are provided for the previous month as well as archived reports. The Summary Report provides a quick synopsis of the number and valuation of permits issued by permit type, while the Recap reports provides the details of each permit issued. For more information about a specific permit, the County’s online eTRAKiT system can provide permit information by permit number, address or GPIN.
The Hanover County Planning Department provides a link to the Community Development Citizen Portal to apply for certain projects and to remittance fees. Other links provided on this page include Planning Commission meeting live stream and archived meetings, Active Land Use Cases interactive map, new zoning applications reports and related links.