We are submitting this petition with regard to the access of expediters to the online permit application system that is to be implemented on July 12th 2012 by the City of Chicago Department of Buildings.

We believe that excluding expediters from directly submitting applications and plans for permits through the online system with the Department of Buildings will have several notable negative impacts, such as listed below:

1. Allowing only architects to submit applications and plans online will decrease the number of new daily permit applications, given that the demand for new permits is likely to overload the architects who would expectedly have limited time to process such new applications. This, in turn, will likely decrease the amount of revenue that the Department of Buildings will create each day from permit fees due to the fact that the architects will be unable to properly accomodate and process the demand for new applications and permits.

2. A large part of the expediters will suffer a significant financial loss due to the lost income that is generated by their services when obtaining permits for their customers. Subjecting the expediters to this financial hardship is inherently unfair, and will have a dramatic negative financial impact on this group.

3. Allowing only architects to apply and submit online plans will likely create a significant increase in fees for expediting services that will now be handled exclusively by the architects, given that this will effectivley limit the supply of expediting services as architects will not be able to devote the same time to these services as expediters. This will result in an inordinate amount of economic power being shifted  towards the architects, and goes against the principle of basic fairness.

It should be noted that many other major cities in the United States that have switched to the online system for permit applications also allow expediters to have access to th esystem for puropses of increased efficiency.

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