What You Can Do
The Grays Harbor County Planning Assistant is available 24/7 through a web chat. Ask questions in plain English — no forms, no phone trees.
Zoning rules & setbacks
Ask about zoning districts, permitted uses, minimum yard requirements, building height limits, and any provision in the Grays Harbor County Code.
Parcel report
Type a 12-digit parcel ID. The assistant retrieves zoning classification, lot dimensions, and land use data from the Grays Harbor County parcel database.
Flood zone check
Find out whether a property lies in a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area. Data is queried live from FEMA’s National Flood Hazard Layer (NFHL).
Wetland & critical areas
Check for wetlands and environmental constraints on a parcel. Data is queried live from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s National Wetlands Inventory (NWI).
Book an appointment
Schedule a 30-minute meeting with a planner. The assistant checks calendar availability, books the slot, and emails confirmation.
Hours: Mon–Fri, 9 AM – 4:30 PM • Last slot: 4:00 PM
Speak to a planner
Request human follow-up at any time. The assistant collects your name, email, and question, then notifies the planning team immediately.
Permit application history & detail
Type a parcel number and the assistant retrieves every permit application ever filed on that property from the county permit portal — including permit type, current status (issued, finalized, voided), submission date, and a direct link to the full permit record. See the complete construction and regulatory history for any parcel at a glance.
Limitations
- Answers are based on the loaded knowledge base; very recent code amendments may not be reflected.
- Conversation history resets when you open a new browser tab.
- Appointments require a valid county working day within office hours.
- For questions beyond the assistant's scope, call the planning department at (360) 249-4222.
Example Conversations
Browse real conversations with the Planning Assistant. Click the arrows — or use the keyboard arrow keys — to explore each scenario.
BLD-2021-00847 — Building Permit • Finalized
New single-family residence, 1,850 sq ft • Submitted: 04/12/2021
PLM-2022-00203 — Plumbing Permit • Finalized
Water heater and fixture installation • Submitted: 03/01/2022
ELE-2022-00219 — Electrical Permit • Issued
Service panel for new construction • Submitted: 03/04/2022
View full history on permit portal ↗
• A valid Short-Term Rental permit from the Planning Division
• Owner-occupancy or a designated local contact within 30 miles
• Compliance with occupancy, noise, and parking standards
I’d recommend a pre-application meeting to walk through the approval process.
§ GHC 17.60 — Short-Term Rentals • § GHC 17.16 — R-2 District
Wetlands: 1 NWI polygon intersects the parcel — a freshwater emergent wetland (PEM1C) covering approximately 0.4 acres in the northwest corner.
⚠ The wetland triggers the Critical Areas Ordinance. A 75-ft development buffer applies before any ground disturbance.
§ GHC 17.100 — Critical Areas Ordinance
📅 Thursday, March 27 • 2:00 PM
📧 Confirmation sent to m.reid@email.com
A planner will review your topic before the meeting. See you Thursday!
• Front yard: 20 ft minimum
• Side yard: 5 ft (3 ft if the structure is under 12 ft tall)
• Rear yard: 5 ft minimum
• Maximum height: 15 ft
A building permit is required for structures over 200 sq ft. Want me to look up your specific parcel or book an appointment?
§ GHC 17.12 — R-1 District
Chat Features
The chat interface includes design elements that make conversations more useful and accessible.
Citation Badges
Regulatory references display a styled § badge linking to the exact Grays Harbor County Code section.
Copy Responses
Hover any bot response to reveal a copy button. Copies plain text to your clipboard.
Dark & Light Mode
Toggle themes with the header icon. Your preference is saved across sessions.
Rich Formatting
Responses use headings, bold, bullet lists, and inline code for clear, scannable answers.
Parcel ID Detection
12-digit parcel numbers are auto-detected and highlighted as you type.
Typing Indicator
Animated dots show when the assistant is processing your question.
Quick-Start Cards
When you first open the chat, four suggestion cards help you get started:
Zoning rules & setbacks
“Can I run a short-term rental on my property? My parcel number is 180531110030.”
Parcel report
“Look up parcel 180531110030 and tell me its zoning and lot dimensions.”
Flood zone check
“Is my property in a FEMA flood zone? Parcel 180531110030”
Wetland & critical areas
“Are there any NWI wetlands on parcel 180531110030?”
What Planners Get
Behind the citizen-facing chat, the system provides automated logging, AI-powered summaries, weekly analytics, and continuous learning.
Automated Session Logging
Every conversation is logged to Google Sheets in real time — session ID, timestamps, user messages, and bot responses. Zero manual entry.
Hourly AI Summaries
Completed sessions are summarized by AI every hour and emailed to staff. Each summary identifies topics, questions asked, and outcome (resolved, escalated, or appointment booked).
Continuous Learning
Summarized sessions are stored as vector embeddings in Qdrant. The assistant draws on past interactions to improve future answers — it learns from every conversation.
Weekly Performance Report
Every Monday at 8:00 AM, a styled HTML report is emailed to the planning department with unique sessions, total messages, appointments, escalations, daily breakdown, and an AI narrative.
Calendar Integration
Citizen-booked appointments appear in Google Calendar with full details (name, email, reason). Confirmation emails are sent automatically.
Escalation Alerts
When a citizen requests to speak with a planner, staff get an immediate email with the citizen's name, contact info, and conversation context.
Multi-Query RAG Search
Regulatory questions are expanded into multiple query variants, searched in parallel against the Qdrant vector store, then merged and ranked for the most relevant answer.
Document Ingestion Pipeline
Upload new planning documents via Google Drive or a web form. Files are automatically chunked, embedded with Ollama, and indexed in the vector store.
Error Monitoring
A dedicated Workflow Error Notifier catches failures across all active workflows and alerts the admin, so issues are caught before citizens notice.
Auto-Draft Email Responses
Incoming citizen emails are read by the AI, which drafts a contextual response and saves it to the email Drafts folder. Planners review, edit if needed, and hit send — cutting response time while keeping humans in the loop.
How It Works
A lightweight chat UI connects to an AI agent orchestrated through n8n workflows, backed by a Qdrant vector store of Grays Harbor County planning regulations.
Qdrant + Ollama
ArcGIS API
NFHL Layer 28
NWI Service
Calendar + Email
Email notification
Permit Portal
Request Flow
- Citizen types a question in the chat UI
- Message is sent to the n8n webhook endpoint
- The Planning AI Agent processes the query with conversational memory and a Think reasoning tool
- The agent invokes specialized sub-workflow tools as needed:
- Regulation Retrieval — expands queries, searches Qdrant, merges and ranks results
- Parcel Info — queries ArcGIS for parcel attributes
- FEMA Flood Check — looks up parcel geometry, queries NFHL for flood zones
- Wetland Check — looks up parcel geometry, queries NWI for wetland data
- Appointment Booking — validates day/time, checks Google Calendar, books slot, emails confirmation
- Speak to a Planner — captures citizen details, emails notification to staff
- Permit History — searches the permit portal, resolves the parcel record, fetches and parses all permit applications
- The agent returns a formatted, citation-rich response to the citizen
- The conversation turn is logged to Google Sheets
Background Automation
- Every hour: Session Summary workflow reads unsummarized sessions from Sheets, generates AI summaries via OpenAI, emails staff, stores embeddings in Qdrant, and marks sessions as processed.
- Every Monday 8 AM: Weekly Report workflow calculates 7-day metrics, generates an AI narrative, builds a styled HTML report, and emails it to the planning department.
- On new documents: Document Ingestion workflow watches Google Drive and accepts form uploads, then chunks, embeds, and indexes into Qdrant.
Live Workflows
The Grays Harbor Planning Assistant runs on 12 active n8n workflows.
| Workflow | Nodes | Purpose | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main Planning Assistant | 21 | Core AI agent — webhook, OpenAI, memory, 7 tool integrations, Google Sheets logging, email channel support | Active |
| Appointment Booking | 11 | Validates day/time, checks Google Calendar availability, books slot, sends email confirmation | Active |
| Speak to a Planner | 4 | Prepares citizen details, sends email notification to planning staff | Active |
| Regulation Retrieval | 5 | Expands queries, searches Qdrant vector store, merges and ranks regulatory results | Active |
| Parcel Info | 2 | Queries ArcGIS parcel service for zoning, acreage, and parcel attributes | Active |
| FEMA Flood Check | 6 | Retrieves parcel geometry, queries FEMA NFHL Layer 28 for flood hazard zones | Active |
| Wetland Check | 6 | Retrieves parcel geometry, queries NWI service for wetland data | Active |
| Document Ingestion — RAG | 11 | Google Drive trigger + form upload, chunks and embeds documents into Qdrant | Active |
| Weekly Performance Report | 6 | Monday 8 AM: reads Sheets, calculates stats, AI narrative, HTML email to staff | Active |
| Workflow Error Notifier | 6 | Catches errors across all workflows, alerts admin | Active |
| Session Summary & Learning | 10 | Hourly: summarizes sessions, emails staff, stores embeddings in Qdrant | Active |
| Get Permit History for Parcel | 7 | Searches the permit portal, resolves the parcel record, fetches detail page, parses all permit applications with type, status, and dates | Active |