2015 was a big year for building permits. This year, Accela led a coalition of civic technology companies and other stakeholders in the development of the first ever shared data specification for building permit data. This new standard is being implemented in cities across the country and will provide new and powerful insights into the operation of cities and the changing character of communities. To demonstrate the power of this new standard, we’re updating our year-end building permit review web app from last year to showcase four jurisdictions that are now publishing data in the new Building and Land Development Specification (BLDS) format. You can view our updated building permit review application here…. Continue reading

Tags: Open Data, Land Management, BLDS

This is the third post in a series on “The Mobile Citizen,” a look at how the Civic Platform is helping agencies of all sizes engage their mobile citizens and stay ahead of the “mobile mind shift.” —— Wednesdays in the New York City office means a rotating assortment of cuisines for team lunch (follow @dshaeffbk for the occasional #foodtweet). Typically we gather to talk about work, upcoming weekend plans, sports, movies, anything really. Every now and then new faces will spice things up. Earlier this month, Mark Headd and Seth Axthelm from our technical evangelist team were visiting. They work to enable, support, educate and innovate with Accela partners and customers to expand the Civic Platform…. Continue reading

Tags: Accela Civic Platform, Land Management, Construct API, Civic Insight, APPCityLife

Today, I am proud to announce that Accela has entered into a strategic partnership with Civic Insight. In this blog post, I will discuss three tangible benefits Accela customers and citizens will gain from bringing the Civic Insight team into Accela. 1. Understanding what is going on in my neighborhood At Accela, we take a lot of inspiration from our neighbors in the Bay Area that are disrupting the way we do things. As such, we have also closely followed the success of nextdoor.com, which makes it easy for citizens to be up to date on what’s going on in their communities. We believe Civic Insight,… Continue reading

Tags: Accela Civic Platform, Land Management, Civic Insight

It’s hard to believe it’s been just over 10 years since Hurricane Katrina hit, displacing more than a million people throughout the Gulf Coast region. Roughly 80 percent of the City of New Orleans was flooded, with 70 percent of all occupied housing units damaged during the hurricane and flooding that followed. Parts of the City remained underwater for eight days until repairs to the levee system made it possible for water to start being pumped out. I was living in Atlanta at the time and heard about the unprecedented devastation on the news. Little did I know that years later I would move across the country and join a company that was instrumental in the City of New Orleans’ efforts to get back on its feet and rebuild…. Continue reading

Tags: Land Management, Hurricane Katrina, Disaster Preparedness, Damage Assessment

Earlier this month, buildingeye joined with the City of Palo Alto and Accela on a webinar to share how we worked together to bring life to Palo Alto city’s planning data in just a matter of weeks. After a brief introduction by Ken Sawtelle, Director of Accela’s Center of Excellence team, I introduced Roland Rivera, a Land Use Analyst in the City of Palo Alto, who demonstrated and explained how he uses the buildingeye application to enhance his daily work with better outcomes and efficiencies. Dealing with over 400 planning applications per year, from variances to individual and architectural reviews including amendments and zone changes, the City needed an easier way to share data…. Continue reading

Tags: Apps, Land Management, Planning

Selecting the right software that works for your agency is a daunting task. Request for Proposal (RFP) documents can be complicated and it’s easy to overlook a specification or goal in the process. Small to medium-sized agencies, especially with constrained budgets, often leverage RFPs created by other agencies in order to create their own. It’s common to copy RFP documents of much larger agencies that have intensive, tailored solution requirements that may not match the smaller agency’s true goals. This often results in vendors struggling to respond and quote excessive functionality that the smaller agencies do not need. This is where the Request For Proposals Wizard comes in – giving you the freedom to create a custom RFP specific to your agency’s needs…. Continue reading

Tags: Accela Civic Platform, Land Management, Asset Management, Licensing, Case Management

Accela Engage was a great opportunity to hear directly from agency staff how they are using the Accela Civic Platform in their building and planning departments. Many cities are competing with each other to attract new investments in their communities. Having an efficient planning, permitting and approval process can make the difference between keeping or losing new development projects. At CityGovApp, we’ve had a long history of working alongside Accela to build and deploy apps that help agencies across the country to be more efficient and citizen-friendly. We’ve worked alongside agencies like Westminster, Colorado, to develop their Manhole Inspection app and at Accela Engage 2013 we showcased the Garbage Collection app for the City of El Paso,… Continue reading

Tags: Land Management, Building Permits, Mobile Apps, CityGovApp

I recently had the honor of presenting at the National Association of Counties (NACo) Resilient Counties Forum as part of a keynote session focused around technology. My fellow presenters included Jeff Stiles, Accela’s Vice President of Marketing, and Ron Hughes, Chief Deputy State Information Officer for the State of California. The Forum was part of NACo’s Presidential Initiative to encourage counties across the country to be more resilient against the many challenges they face. My brief was to talk about how the county I work for, Charlotte County on the southwest coast of Florida, utilizes technology—primarily Accela Land Management on the Civic Platform—to help us become more resilient…. Continue reading

Tags: Accela Civic Platform, Land Management, Charlotte County, Florida

Many government agencies have already discovered the benefits of moving their permitting and inspection and code enforcement processes online. Whether your agency serves a large metropolitan area or a small town, the benefits are the same: doing more with less—in less time. So, what can you do that you couldn’t do before? Government agencies can save time by accepting and managing permits online and capturing inspection results in real time. Developers, contractors and citizens can submit permit applications and review progress and make updates without making a trip to City Hall. Inspectors can interact with complete case information, access their daily inspection schedules, create new cases in the field,… Continue reading

Tags: Accela Automation, Code Enforcement, Land Management, Permitting and Inspection