A Web-GIS Building Permit Tracker Built with Open Technology Using a Participatory Approach

The Building Permits Tracker was developed in house by the GIS Division of the Growth Management Department, in Alachua County, Florida. The Tracker was built with an Open Technology and a Participatory Design approach and it was implemented carefully to incrementally replace a legacy system in operation. The Tracker is non-proprietary, and it is estimated to have saved at least $1,000,000.

The Problem / Needs for the Program

In the year 2000 our Building Division acquired a software module dedicated to Permitting and Inspections which was also linked to an Automatic Telephone Inspections Request system. For the past few years, this was the technological infrastructure for our building activities. This software module was poorly built, as its interface was inefficient, unintuitive, and not well designed. The software was blighted with routine system problems and functional errors that the users had endured over the years of its deployment. Furthermore, this module was built with an obsolete technology and a very old and inefficient model of deployment, which made it impossible to integrate with our GIS system or the Web.

This proprietary software locked our choices to one single vendor. Access to this software was also limited to 35-40 users, as the licensing agreement was based on per-user pricing. In addition, we were required to pay a significant annual maintenance fee and dedicated a full-time staff to its administration.

These limitations, inefficiencies and cost burdens restricted access to building information and activities to only a few users and bound its access to only the office location. This created two main operational burdens:

1. building inspectors were tied to the office for dispatching and recording their daily field activities
2. responding to the needs of the public or other divisions and departments for building information imposed a heavy overhead cost to our operations and to the public

The Open Solution

This suite of applications was conceived, designed, developed, and implemented by the GIS Division of the Alachua County Growth Management Department entirely in-house. In contrast with the traditional procurement standards of most local governments, this suite of applications was created with an Open Technology and a Participatory Design approach. A Participatory Design approach is an approach to the assessment, design, and development of technological and organizational systems that places a premium on the active role of workplace practitioners, who are the users of these systems.

During the entire process, the GIS Division engaged building clerks, building inspectors, code inspectors, local builders, contractors, the Building Official and the Builders Association. While working in close collaboration with them to build the suite of web-based geospatial applications that comprise the Building Permit Tracker, the GIS Division drew upon the input and support of these stakeholders for creating use cases and workflow diagrams on user requirements, on business flows, on daily operations and functionality, and on how they relate to Florida Statutes. Active user involvement continued from conception until the final implementation.

The Building Permits Tracker was also developed with an Open Technology approach. Open Technology is defined here as practices for development and implementation of software which are enabled by the Internet and related technologies. Its key elements are:

• Open Standards and Interfaces
• Open Source Software and Designs
• Online Collaboration and Distributed Tools
• Technological Agility

By employing an Open Technology approach, the GIS Division has relied heavily on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), which is available to anyone free of charge, which does not require license payments, and which subscribes to the General Public License (GPL). This approach has saved significant upfront acquisition costs, has eliminated yearly license and maintenance costs for the lifetime of the product, and has made possible the development of a non-proprietary product, which can be enhanced and changed in a competitive way and which can be re-utilized by other local governments. This product, under full ownership and copyrights of Alachua County, has an estimated upfront commercial value of $500,000 with another $50,000 per year for the rest of its life. These costs, together with all the related costs which were needed to run the proprietary software, which this one has replaced, have all been saved.

The Building Permit Tracker is available to all via the Internet and it allows for unlimited access from the public. Several of its features and functionalities which support data input, are available to Alachua County employees only, with a login, via the Internet. The tracker is composed of a suite of eight integrated applications.