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STREAMLINING BUSINESS by Bob Tedeschi City Hall Gets More Efficient, Despite a Hurricane (or Two) Apr 05, 2006 VIEW ORIGINAL ARTICLE As the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina subsided, the city of New Orleans faced a new deluge: requests from contractors and homeowners for permits to rebuild thousands of homes, businesses and municipal buildings. But the city government was suffering its own crisis. Apart from the physical havoc the hurricane wreaked, much of the staff was gone, seeking refuge in other states. The city's inspection and permits team was less than half the size of its pre-hurricane level, while demand for permits was far greater than before. What New Orleans needed was an efficiency rarely seen in even the best-run governments. So it turned to the Internet, where business-to-government commerce, involving transactions and other procedures, is becoming more common. The city's experience is the most notable example of how such transactions are faring. "We had to inspect 110,000 homes in six weeks, and I had nobody to send out to do the inspections," said Greg Meffert, the city's chief technology officer. "There's not exactly a handbook on that." Mr. Meffert addressed the problem by installing new software on dozens of Internet kiosks set up in public buildings citywide. About 90 days after the August storm passed, the new system was up and running. Now businesses and homeowners can type in the address of the home they need to have rebuilt, and the system does much of the rest. It knows, for instance, that homes on certain parts of a given street have taken in four feet of water; it also knows the size of the home, the assessed value and the likely extent of damage. From there, it determines whether homeowners can rebuild (as opposed to demolish), and whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency will pay for it. City Hall supervisors review the applications on the day they are filed. The next day, applicants can log on and print their building permits. The city knows the condition of the homes because it ascertained exactly how much water each precinct was under, and has preprogrammed the system to assess damage accordingly. If an application is outside the bounds of building ordinances, the permit will be denied. (If there is a questionable application, the city will send an inspector.) "That was the lifeblood of the process," Mr. Meffert said. "That allowed us to get going with rebuilding the city." Under the new system, the city has issued about 625 permits daily. Before the storm, Mr. Meffert said, the average was about 45 permits, and contractors and homeowners waited in line at City Hall for nearly two hours, sometimes much longer. "They'd cut the line off at 2 o'clock just so they could close at 5," said Christopher Marino Jr., the general manager of Roman Builders in Slidell, La., north of New Orleans. "And after the storm, City Hall unlocked the doors at 8 a.m., and there'd be a line just to get into the elevator." Mr. Marino, whose company was based in New Orleans before Katrina, said he hired an employee just to sit in line for permits. "Now, instead of paying someone to do that for eight hours a week, I have to have someone do it for maybe three hours a month," he said. Homeowners get another break from the new system, Mr. Marino said. Permits for a $90,000 renovation cost contractors about $500, whereas homeowners get them free, which is a posthurricane policy. "So they can get it themselves and not get aggravated at me because they think I'm overcharging," Mr. Marino said. "It helps me get jobs." Mr. Blackman said that his company was working on systems that would help agencies simultaneously review architectural plans online, rather than circulating physical plans. The paper-shuffling now takes about six months. "We believe we can get that down to two months by collaborating online," he said. |