From Building Permit Review Comments to Comment-Based Process Indicators: An EstBERT-Based Classification Workflow

Abstract: Current building permit evaluation methods use broad metrics like duration and interviews, lacking detail and objectivity for targeted improvements. This paper introduces a workflow to convert unstructured reviewer comments into process indicators using EstBERT, a taxonomy, and supervised multi-label classification. Comments are categorized by issue type and domain, then combined into indicators of rework reasons, inconsistency, and transparency. On a validation set of 365 comments, the classifier scores micro-F1 of 0.470 and macro-F1 of 0.395. Results indicate reviewer comments can reliably support baseline assessment and inform targeted interventions across applications, municipalities, and work types.