Basic Building Permits to Go Online in Sunnyvale and Mountain View.$100,000 Grant From Microsoft and Carta Will Create an Internet-based Building Permits Filing System in Sunnyvale and Mountain View MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 10, 1999-- Property owners in Sunnyvale and Mountain View who make routine upgrades and repairs, like re-roofing or adding water heaters, will soon be able to file the required building permit information over the Internet twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, thanks to a new system created in partnership with Microsoft and the Cities of Sunnyvale and Mountain View. The partnership was facilitated by Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network. The e-permit system, which is scheduled for launch in October of this year, will be full service, allowing property owners to apply for basic permits, pay fees and schedule inspections online, completely eliminating the need to travel to city hall and stand in line. Linked directly to city permit tracking and accounting systems, e-permit will save city officials time and money by streamlining permit transactions. "Permits for routine upgrades and repairs, or what we call 'simple permits', can make up as much as half a city building department's workload The term workload can refer to a number of different yet related entities. An amount of labor While a precise definition of a workload is elusive, a commonly accepted definition is the hypothetical relationship between a group or individual human operator and task demands. ," said Ron Geary, building official for the City of Mountain View. "The e-permit system will enable us to dedicate ded·i·cate tr.v. ded·i·cat·ed, ded·i·cat·ing, ded·i·cates 1. To set apart for a deity or for religious purposes; consecrate. 2. more resources to large-scale projects -- the kind of projects that significantly impact how the city grows." By making building permits more accessible, officials hope to encourage more property owners and contractors to take the legal route and apply for permits rather than perform work that isn't subject to inspection and may not meet safety standards Safety standards are standards designed to ensure the safety of products, activities or processes, etc. They may be advisory or compulsory and are normally laid down by an advisory or regulatory body that may be either voluntary or statutory. . "We issue permits for the safety of everyone. If you install your water heater incorrectly, you could blow up your house", said Lee Vandiver, Manager of Data Systems and Networking for the City of Sunnyvale. "Anything that will decrease the number of property alterations made without legal permits is a welcome development." The e-permit system grew out of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network's Smart Permits program, an effort that leverages Internet technology developed in the region to speed the building permitting process. Joint Venture, a public/private partnership dedicated to promoting economic vitality vi·tal·i·ty n. 1. The capacity to live, grow, or develop. 2. Physical or intellectual vigor; energy. and quality of life in Silicon Valley, began working on smart permits in 1995. Since then, a number of cities have agreed to universal building code standards, reducing the number of code amendments from 400 to 1. And seven cities Seven Cities may refer to:
The Northern California Northern California, sometimes referred to as NorCal, is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The region contains the San Francisco Bay Area, the state capital, Sacramento; as well as the substantial natural beauty of the redwood forests, the northern Microsoft Consulting Services The consulting arm of Microsoft which offers support for installation and maintenance of Microsoft applications and operating systems. organization and Microsoft e-commerce partner, Carta Inc. of Sacramento, contributed $100,000 in consulting fees to develop the architecture of the e-permit system. They are working with engineers from Sunnyvale and Mountain View to develop the Web sites, which will be built on a Windows NT (Windows New Technology) A 32-bit operating system from Microsoft for Intel x86 CPUs. NT is the core technology in Windows 2000 and Windows XP (see Windows). Available in separate client and server versions, it includes built-in networking and preemptive multitasking. platform using Microsoft Site Server E-Commerce Edition and SQL Server An earlier relational DBMS from Sybase and from Microsoft. Sybase introduced SQL Server in 1988 for various Unix versions. In that same year, with help from IBM, Sybase created an OS/2 version that Microsoft licensed and branded as Microsoft SQL Server. database software. For more information, visit the following Web sites: Microsoft Northern California http://www.microsoft.com/norcal/ Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network http://www.jointventure.org |
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