Fairfax County's online permit portal shuts down for four days next month, and anyone with a pending building, zoning or land-use application needs to act before the lights go out.

The Planning and Land Use System, known as PLUS, will go offline at 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, and stay dark until 7 a.m. Monday, Nov. 9, according to a county announcement posted Oct. 20. The system is moving to a new cloud-based platform.

No applications or services will be available during the outage. The county urged users to submit time-sensitive requests before the shutdown begins.

What PLUS handles

PLUS is the county's central hub for submitting permit applications, paying fees, tracking application status and receiving electronic notifications, according to the county's PLUS information page. Residents and businesses use it for zoning, building, permitting and other land-development processes, as well as complaints and environmental health filings.

Homeowners waiting on a renovation permit, contractors tracking an inspection and developers filing zoning requests will all lose access for the long weekend.

What changes after the restart

The county said the migration will make PLUS faster, more reliable and better able to handle high demand. Staff will spend less time on routine maintenance, freeing them to process applications and serve customers, the county said.

After the system comes back online, it will keep the same design with only minor cosmetic changes. Fairfax County said it will continue to own and safeguard all data stored in the system.

What the county hasn't said

The Oct. 20 announcement does not name a contact number, email or department for users who need help during the outage. It also does not say whether any emergency or paper-based submission process will be available for applicants facing hard legal deadlines over the Nov. 5–9 weekend.

Residents can learn more about PLUS and its services at the county's PLUS information page.