Population: 260,000

Building Permits: 5,000 /year

e-Plan Systems includes:

• Accepts permits electronically as PDF/DWF files and on CD-ROM for commercial and residential structures.
• In final stages of beta testing of electronic review of commercial plans using 34” monitors and track online.
• As of yet have not introduced electronic storage – store on microfilm only. Plan to store electronically on servers in near future.

1. Problems Trying to Address with ProjectDox®

The building department for the combined city of Lincoln and surrounding Lancaster County looked at e-plan submittal, review and tracking as a mechanism to better serve the needs of their architecture, engineering and contractor community. The city/county was especially interested in speeding the plan review time and cutting down on the number of and time being spent on re-reviews of incomplete plans or plans needing significant corrections to be code compliant.

An immediate barrier that had to be overcome was the need to go to Board of Examiners of Engineers & Architects and to get their approval for acceptance of electronic seals in state law as opposed to then existing acceptance of only wet seals for plans. Stakeholders supported this action.

2. How City/County Involved Stakeholders

Lincoln/Lancaster County started their e-plan process by inviting external stakeholders into a meeting and asked them if they were interested in e-plan submittal, review and tracking. The jurisdiction noted that if there was support for such an initiative the city/county would undertake it. Consensus at that meeting was yes to go forward with an e-plan system. Out of the group, several firms offered to participate in system design, development and early testing. The city/county also made sure to fully involve elected officials, as they can become either strong advocates or a barrier to e-plan system.

3. Funding Source Being Used

Since 1998, the building department has operated as a special revenue (enterprise) agency. The jurisdiction’s fee structure was set to build in the costs of deployment of their e-plan system. That funding was kept safe by county statutes that made it illegal to use building department fees for non-building department purposes.

4. How City/County is Sharing e-Plan Data with Other Agencies

Initially the building department limited to fire, public works, planning and public health department use of the building department e-plan system where these agencies do building plan related reviews. These agencies, especially planning and fire prevention, are now looking at it for their own plan reviews.

5. How City/County is Training Staff and Customers

Initially the software vendor did general training for internal customers (the city/county staff). Now the city/county staff is doing specialized training and training for external customers, both in sessions in building department and sessions at the offices of architects, engineers and contractors.

6. Implementation Lessons to Share

Keep an open mind as you put the system in place. The city/county notes that you may need to re-engineer existing system and make adjustments to best serve needs of both the internal and external customers.