County praised for new, interactive Growth Management Web site

A commitment to open government, a desire to save money and the challenge of intellectual exercise has led to a totally interactive Alachua County Growth Management Department Web site that is drawing national attention for its completeness and innovation.

Whether someone wants to find the nearest historical site to their home, wetlands on land they might buy or when the inspector will be at the home they are building - it can all be found online and in real time.

"We have embedded spatial thinking into our daily business model. It is not very common. The economical benefit is that you don't have staff now to collect the data. It's economical, it's not just cool," said Juna Papajorgji, the department's geographic information system manager. "In every corner of the world you go, the basic idea is that information is power and the people in power don't want it to be available as much. To the credit of Alachua County, there is not a single record in our department that is not live in real time for everybody to grab."

The Growth Management Department oversees the writing and implementation of the county's comprehensive plan, issues permits for commercial and residential development, inspects buildings that are under construction, enforces county codes and conducts many other duties.

Given that, geographical information is crucial to every facet of the department.

Development on a tract with wetlands, for example, may be limited to upland areas to protect water quality and prevent flooding. County staff need to know where the wetlands are, their size and other factors to ensure protection.

All of those maps are available to the public. But the department has also collected data that can be overlayed on maps.

For instance, a "green map" enables viewers to find trails, historical sites, farmer's markets, roads with bike lanes, libraries, community gardens, conservation land and lots of other features.

The site also has an interface that allows the public to enter information about their home, such as whether it has solar panels or is a certified green building. The home appears as a point on the map.

The county will be able to use this in future planning to create, say, a green community that would draw like-minded residents. Or a real estate agent could be able to find a green house for a client.

Robert Hutchinson of Alachua Conservation Trust said the department's maps are among those used by the organization every day in its land preservation efforts.

"We could not do our job without those resources. GIS technology has totally changed the way we do our work," Hutchinson said. "At our board meetings, maps are on the projector at all times. We're zooming in and out and looking at different layers of information. We used to spend a lot of time and effort dealing with maps. Now we have these tools where with a few clicks we can share data."

The system has increased employee efficiency in a variety of ways, officials said.

Building inspectors used to have to come into the office in the morning to divvy up assignments, drive to the assignments and then file their reports back in the office.

Now, however, they have laptops. They check in via computer for assignments, go straight to them and enter the report at the scene. That saves the county money and improves efficiency.

"It has revolutionized the way we are doing business," said county building inspector John Freeland. "Our office is downtown. Essentially we were coming 10 miles through Gainesville's jurisdiction and then back out just to come into the office. This way the route is started much more efficiently. Contractors are using the system much more heavily now."

Reports are online in real time, so the permittee can view the inspection report or an inspector's schedule. Contractors can also leave inspectors notes online and find that their efficiency is improved.

"It is a wonderful system. It gives us 24-hour access to the information where in the past, with only the phone system, we could call in 24 hours but half the time it wasn't working and we had no real-time information on whether it actually went through," said Mark Farris of Barry Bullard Homes. "Now it makes scheduling inspections so much easier. We can leave notes online and they can leave us notes."

Papajorgji said the programs were developed in-house and was done largely with the use of open-source software and open technology - again saving the county money by not buying software or consultants to design the system.

"With the building permits, we saved a half-million dollars without any hesitation. We had a system in here that didn't work and was very bad. We started experimenting around. The next thing we know, we created something that was one of the most top quality products," Papajorgji said. "What made it for the inspectors was that we made it with their input. They have buy-in. We made it with them rather than imposing it on them."

Papajorgji and Growth Management Web developer Tim Clark were recently presenters at the Government Open Source Conference in Oregon, which brought together experts from across the U.S., Papajorgji said Alachua County was one of the few local governments among the state and federal agency representatives that served as presenters.

Greater public participation in the Growth Management Web site is expected. Schools, for instance, can use it as a teaching tool, Papajorgji said. It can also function more as a wiki in which the public submits information that would be verified by the county.

The public is becoming more familiar with geographic information systems by the day, particularly through popular programs such as Google Maps, said Justin Saarinen of the Gainesville consulting firm GIS Associates.

As that familiarity grows, he said, people will use sites such as Growth Management's even more.

"I look at the world through maps. The phrase I always think of is that if a picture says a thousand words, a map says 10,000 words. You can understand things so quickly when you look at a map," Saarinen said.

Links to many of the Growth Management Department's Web information can be found at http://growth-management.alachua.fl.us/.

Contact Cindy Swirko at 374-5024 or at swirkoc@gvillesun.com.