Portal Questions and Answers (FAQ)

No. Anyone can search permits and property information without signing in. You need a free account to apply, upload documents, pay fees, see the full status detail on your own project, and request inspections.

One you check often. Every notice about your project goes to that address and nowhere else. If you are registering for a company, use an address more than one person can reach, because the account is tied to the email, not to the person.

The City asks you to enter your name with the company after it, in the form John Doe (JD Construction Inc.). That is what staff will see on the project.

Wait at least 30 minutes, then check your junk and quarantine folders for the activation message. Follow the link in that message, sign in and click Activate. If the message still has not arrived, contact the Permit Center before creating another account.

If nothing arrives, call the Permit Center at 541-388-5580 rather than registering a second time. A duplicate account splits your projects across two logins.

Yes, but only people added as a Contact on that project. Registered contacts can pay fees, view and upload documents, see the added status detail, and request inspections. Everyone else sees only what the public search shows.

Because the portal is organized by City department, not by project. A single development can carry a planning application, a building permit and an engineering permit, and each one lives under its own service area with its own number. There is no single screen that shows the whole project in one view.

The practical fix is to keep your own one line list of every number the project has picked up, with the department beside it.

The tiles on the portal home page, and the same headings you will see under My Items:

• Building, Permanent Signs and SDC Estimates
• Planning and Historic
• Engineering and Agreements
• Engineering, Capital Improvement
• Special Event, Noise Variance or Fire Request
• Business Registration, Licensing and Temporary Signs
• Contractor Registration
• Code Enforcement
• Property Information

The list of everything filed under your account. It appears in the top menu bar only when you are signed in. Expand the service area you want, then switch between All, Active and Inactive. Clicking a number opens that project's status page.

An estimate of the system development charges (SDCs) that may apply to your project. The applicable charges vary by project. Request an estimate through the portal before you apply, and confirm the categories, amount and due date against the City’s current fee and SDC schedules or with the Permit Center.

Sign in, pick the service area on the portal home page, click Apply, then choose the application type from the drop down. Work through the pages using Next Step. Required fields carry a red asterisk, and a blue information icon means there is more explanation behind it. The last page is a recap with the fees and a CAPTCHA, and then Submit Application.

The information you enter is what staff use to decide which reviews your project needs and what it will be charged, so a vague description costs you time later.

Try the tax lot number instead of the street address, or switch to Find location in map and click the lot. If neither works, there is a Can't Find Address button. New subdivisions and recently split lots are the usual reason an address is missing.

No. You can upload later through My Items, on the project's own page. Filing without the documents does not start the review, though, so the only thing you gain is holding the application number.

The portal does not carry a saved applicant profile forward from one application to the next, and reissued master permits will ask again for answers you have already given. Keep your standard block of information in a text file and paste it in.

It depends on whether they are a business or a person, and on what contact type you hold.

• A business, during the application. At the Contacts step, click Add Business From Address Book, pick the contact type, search, then Add This Contact.
• A business, after submittal. Open the project, click Edit Details at the upper right, and add or remove there.
• A person. Enter them in the Other Parties Access or Additional Contacts fields on the first step, or email permitcenter@bendoregon.gov with the role, name and email. Staff add them.

Only a contact whose type is Applicant can add or remove contacts. If your type is Interested Party, which is what older projects often default to, you cannot, and you will need staff to change it.

Almost always because the file was not flattened. Layers, text boxes, markups, signatures and stamps have to be burned into the page before you upload, or the review software cannot mark it up. Unflattened files are returned and the review does not start.

Plan sets must be PDF. In AutoCAD, either plot through the DWG to PDF plotter with Include layer information unchecked, or use Export and set Layer Information to Don't include.

Yes, more than most applicants expect. Reviewers cite your file name when they write a correction, so a set uploaded as Scan001.pdf produces corrections that nobody can trace back to a sheet. Name files so the sheet is obvious, and keep the same names across every cycle.

Two places, and you want both.

• The letter. On the project page, open Documents and Images at the bottom and find the Notice of Incomplete Application or the Notice of Required Revisions. It is a numbered list of corrections, each tied to a document or plan sheet.
• The marked up sheets. Same section, tagged (Received). Read them next to the letter.

For the comment by comment view, open Submittals, then the numbered cycle, then the individual reviews. A comment marked OUTSTANDING or CARRIED FORWARD is a failure you still have to answer. Anything else is resolved.

Read it, but do not upload yet. Until every review in the cycle is finished, what you see is partial, and the email you received says the same partial thing. Wait for the final summary once all reviews are complete, then respond to the whole cycle at once. Documents uploaded outside a review cycle may be rejected or simply sit.

New Version for a revised copy of a document already in the system. That keeps the versions stacked so the reviewer can compare. Browse only for a document that has never been uploaded, or when staff tell you to. Uploading a revision through Browse creates a second unrelated document and the reviewer may never find it.

Then scroll to the bottom and click Upload Documents. Wait for the confirmation message before you close the tab.

From My Items, click Add Fees to My Cart on any project showing a balance, or open the project and add from the bottom of the invoice. Then open My Shopping Cart and click Make Payment. You can pay fees on several projects in one transaction.

In person and by mail: 710 NW Wall Street, Bend, OR 97703.

Treat it as fraud. The City of Bend does not send direct links to payment processing. Open the portal yourself, sign in, and pay from your own cart. Forward anything suspicious to permitcenter@bendoregon.gov.

Fees can change, including outside the annual fee schedule update, and the portal does not always show why a number moved. Ask the Permit Center for the basis of the charge before you pay, and keep the estimate you were given.

You have to be listed as a contact on the permit. Open the permit from My Items, or use Request An Inspection on the portal home page and enter the project number or address. Check the inspections you want, click Next Step, choose a date, and complete the CAPTCHA.

Requests made before 11:30 p.m. can be scheduled for the next business day at the earliest. The date you pick is a request, not a booking. Put a field contact and phone number in the notes, and add any other email addresses that should get the result, separated by semicolons.

Three things block an inspection request: an unpaid fee, an outstanding condition on the permit, or a change in permit status. Clear the balance first, since that is the quickest to check. If the permit looks clear and the inspection is still missing, call the Permit Center.

Portal notifications identify the permit by number and do not carry the project name or the site address. On a portfolio of projects this is the single most common source of confusion. Keep a list of your numbers against project names, and use the portal's public permit search to look a number up when you are caught out.

This happens, and it does not necessarily mean your permit has lapsed. Do not withdraw or refile on the strength of the notice. Email the Permit Center with the permit number and ask for the status in writing.

There is no published channel for reporting portal defects. Send it to permitcenter@bendoregon.gov with your project number, the page you were on, what you clicked, and what happened. A screenshot helps.

Permit Center counter, 710 NW Wall Street, Bend. Customer resources Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Permit inquiries Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed most major holidays.

Yes. The City publishes written guides for registration, applying, paying, tracking, inspections, corrections and electronic plan review, plus short videos on registration, paying fees and requesting an inspection. They are all on the Online Permit Center Portal Help page.