When it comes to finding a contractor for a home renovation project or checking in on a developer that flipped a property, D.C. homeowners either have to scour digital reviews or cling to word-of-mouth recommendations.

But now D.C. has rolled out what city officials say is a more “objective” system. The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs’ new Contractor Rating System uses a five-star rating system to assess and rate everyone from licensed architects and permit expediters to general contractors and electricians.

“Currently there is a void in terms of information that consumers can use to make informed decisions,” says DCRA director Ernest Chrappah on what motivated the new rating system, which he says is a first-of-its-kind for local consumer and enforcement agencies.

But the goal was never to become an outlet for rave reviews or angry admonitions written by local homeowners; rather, the rating system is meant to be an anti-Angie’s List of sorts, according to Chrappah.

“Our rating system, unlike the ones that are available in the marketplace, is purely objective. There’s no subjectivity in terms of customer opinions because we think that is already being served by tools out there, and we are filling the void,” he says.

That comes from assessing different licensed professionals on how well they jump through the regulatory hoops that exist whenever work gets done on a house or business. The better they perform on specific metrics, the more stars they’ll get. For architects, for example, a key metric is how accurate their drawings are when reviewed; for traditional contractors or tradespeople, it’s how many inspections they pass and fail. The system also lists how many projects each contractor has picked up, and how many stop work orders they’ve gotten.

The new rating system comes amid a flurry of changes Chrappah has made at the oft-criticized agency he took over in 2019. He revamped and combined the agency’s main public-facing databases, kicked off a novel program of on-demand housing inspections, and launched a new “permit wizard” to make it easier to residents to apply for approvals when they want to get work done on their homes.

But many of those changes may have come too late for lawmakers frustrated with years of troubles at DCRA, including concerns that the agency has been slow to respond to complaints of illegal construction and vacant properties; neglected to police housing code violations and safety concerns at residential properties; and failed to track and follow up when it issued reprimands to businesses and developers who broke the rules.

Late last year, the D.C. Council passed a bill to break up DCRA into two separate agencies: one to handle building permits and inspections, the other business licensing and consumer protection. Lawmakers say that breaking up the 475-employee, $73 million agency will make it better at performing its long lists of responsibilities.

Mayor Muriel Bowser disagreed, arguing that it would be expensive and stop the progress she says has already been made. She vetoed the bill in January, but the council easily overrode her last month. Still, lawmakers are now left to find the money—and estimated $33 million over four years—to make the breakup a reality.

Until that happens, Chrappah says he plans to keep working on his promised digital transformation of the agency.

“[The] Council has to figure out the money for the breakup bill. But in the meantime, staff and myself are just focused on delivering better services to residents and that’s all that we can do,” he says.