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November 8, 2012 By Noelle Knell
Roanoke, Va.’s population of nearly 100,000 has generated about 1,100 building permits so far in 2012. Ryan McHugh, plans examiner with the Roanoke Building Department, specifies that many of those are combination permits, containing several permits for specialized trade work -- like electrical, plumbing, mechanical, gas and demolition -- within them. The city’s four building inspectors complete between 800 and 1,000 inspections per month.
Contractors and home renovators in Roanoke now have a new option to help expedite their construction project. They used to leave a voicemail message with the city’s Building Department to alert officials that their project had met a milestone and was ready for an inspection. Staff would monitor the voicemail messages and schedule the next business day’s workload for building inspectors accordingly.
Like most cities, however, Roanoke has since added an online permit center, where permit holders can request official sign-off by a city inspector. Visitors to the website can also access permit applications and information, monitor permit status, view the inspection calendar and review historical permit data dating back 10 years.
But the growth in smartphone and tablet use over the past few years led officials to consider simplifying the permitting process even further.
McHugh explained to Government Technology that permit placards are required to be visible on all active building projects in Roanoke. Over the course of a couple months, city staff added quick response (QR) codes to permit placards. Adding this capability, McHugh said, allows quick access to project information and other data available via the website from mobile devices.
You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to
http://www.govtech.com/QR-Codes-Streamline-Permitting-in-Roanoke-Va.html
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QR code is a great invention people made. I'm making mobile apps currently and find it really cool to implement QR codes into them. I'm amazed at QR code coupons www.Snappii.com app builder allows to create. They are really helpful for small businesses.
I don't understand why they wouldn't just print the URL on the sign, and then someone with the smartphone can type that URL into their phone. I have never see anyone scan a QR code, except when the person had just made and printed out that QR code themself and wanted to show me how cool it was, and then usually it takes several minutes and several failed attempts to scan while they mumble about how great it is. Please, please, government: Do not do this. It is only going to make it harder to use your system, if I am forced to perfectly line up and photo a QR code in order to go to your website. Please give me the URL instead.
@Wilhelmina. I'm sure the technology will only improve with time...just like most things.
I have used QR codes in addition to Microsoft codes and bar code scanners on my smart phone. Unless someone converts a URL to a tiny.url why type a long string out if you can scan the QR & be brought to the site? Faster, less prone to error and more efficient.
I agree with you G-Man, QR codes are so much simplier than typing (and mis-typing) out URLs. Not every URL is as simple as NAME.COM, sometimes they can be long as you route the person to the correct area of a website. As for QR readers, my iPhone app is so fast, I can hardly start to point it at the code and it already has read it. (Maybe you're using a poor QR app WR.)