Frequently Asked Questions
Straight answers on how the platform works, what it costs, how we handle security, and how cities get started.
Conflation Labs makes AI software for zoning research and site plan review. Planning departments use it, and so do architects, engineers and CRE due-diligence teams.
You ask about a property in plain English. Land Use Intelligence reads the adopted ordinances and the city's GIS layers, then answers with a map and the code section it relied on. AI Plan Review handles drawings: upload a site plan and it checks the design against the local development standards.
Conflation Labs answers from your city's adopted code and parcel data. Each answer cites the ordinance section or data record it used and comes with a map of the parcels involved. General chatbots work from their training data and have never read your zoning code, so there's no section for them to point you to.
The ones planning staff hear at the counter every day. Each comes back with a written answer and a map, and people usually keep going with follow-ups like these:
Zoning and property:
“What is the zoning for APN 010353120?” → “Explain what that zoning allows” → “Show me other parcels with the same zoning within half a mile.”
Business permitting:
“Can I open a tobacco shop at 300 Morningside Drive?” → “Why or why not?” → “Where else in the city can I open one?”
Residential permits and ADUs:
“Do I need a permit for a shade structure at 225 Charlotte Ct?” → “Walk me through the application” → “What are the ADU setback requirements here?”
Economic development:
“Show me available commercial properties downtown” → “What incentives are available for new businesses?”
Zoning report writers use Zoning Report Workspace. Give it an address and it works out which jurisdiction governs the property. It pulls the zoning standards that apply, with citations, and reads existing conditions off the ALTA survey. Each category comes back marked conforming or nonconforming.
Your analysts start from that sourced draft. Municipal follow-up and the final sign-off stay with them.
Mostly for the final QA/QC before a submittal. AI Plan Review checks the site plan against the local development standards and lists what's off, with the code section for each item, so fewer sets come back with corrections.
Earlier in a project, teams ask Land Use Intelligence what the zoning allows on a site. Setbacks, height and permitted uses come back with citations you can put in front of a client.
Every answer comes from your own documents and points to the section, paragraph or data record behind it. Click the citation and you're looking at the source. When the documents don't cover a question, the assistant tells you that. Final decisions stay with licensed professionals.
You can check each one yourself. An answer links to its source, whether that's an ordinance section or a parcel record, and plan review answers point to the sheet in the drawing set. Keep that trail handy when an answer gets questioned at a council meeting or in a permit appeal.
It uses vision models to read each sheet the way a reviewer would. The model gets the scale from the title block, measures dimensions and setbacks, counts parking and works out landscape percentages, then compares all of it with the code that applies. Every sheet gets the same check.
Yes. Plenty of the codes we work with are scanned PDFs, and many carry decades of amendments with overlays that conflict. The assistant still answers from them. Setting up a city tends to expose the gaps, and staff often learn where their own code is ambiguous from what the AI flags.
Yes. We work from the documents and data you already have: zoning ordinances, building codes, parcel data, comprehensive plans and GIS layers. Your permitting system stays the system of record. We run alongside Tyler, Accela, OpenGov, Esri and other platforms.
For CRE due-diligence teams, your CRM and ordering platform stay in charge too. The workspace hands them a sourced, reviewable draft.
Yes. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest and hosted on U.S.-based cloud infrastructure. Staff sign in with MFA and only see what their role allows. Every action is logged, and enterprise customers can use SSO. Your content is never used to train public AI models, and our contracts with model providers enforce that.
The Trust Center has the full details and a security review packet.
We can set up any U.S. city that gives us access to its documents and GIS data. There are live deployments from California to Florida, and we keep adding design-partner cities.
CRE and AEC teams usually work across many markets. We're gradually covering the country's 30,000 jurisdictions, so send us the places you work and we'll tell you which ones are live today.
No. It takes on the repetitive work: code lookups, map requests, first-pass plan checks and the permit questions people ask every week. Staff get that time back for work that needs a planner's judgment. Most planning departments we talk to are short-staffed.
Anyone who needs zoning or permit answers. Nobody needs GIS training to use it.
City staff: planning, building and permits, code enforcement and economic development get zoning, permit and map answers on the spot.
Elected officials and leadership: district and development data when they need it, and dependable answers for constituents.
Residents and businesses: residents, business owners, developers and real estate agents can look up zoning, permits and property details on their own.
Architects and engineers: check a site plan against the local standards before it goes to the city.
CRE due-diligence teams: zoning analysts get a cited draft for every property in a zoning report.
Say a senior planner spends two hours a day on routine zoning and permit questions. That's roughly $50,000 a year of their time, and GIS map requests add another $30,000. Most customers cover the cost within the first month of saved staff time.
Zoning report writers and architects can run their own numbers in the savings calculator on our homepage.
Yes. The design-partner program is free for the first two months. After the pilot, most cities pay for it from existing IT or planning operating budgets, so it doesn't need a new procurement cycle. If it has to go into next year's budget, we'll help you write the request with ROI numbers from similar cities.
Most of our cities didn't have one when they started. We'll send you a template policy. We'll also give you the data-handling answers legal and IT ask for before approving a pilot, like how we treat model training and public records requests.
Not much. We start from your existing documents and GIS data, so there's no data project to run first. Design-partner cities put in 1 to 2 hours of staff time a week during onboarding, and we handle the rest.
One person for 1 to 2 hours a week during the design-partner phase, usually a senior planner or the GIS lead. After onboarding it's mostly feedback as your team uses it.
Fill out the contact form and we'll set up a walkthrough using real data from your city. Bring your implementation questions.
Still meeting unfamiliar zoning terms? Our zoning glossary explains setbacks, FAR, variances, and the rest in plain English.