4.18 Sample Municipal GIS Application Cum CLUP Dataset

4.18.01 Case Study – A Synchronized Building Permit Application cum CLUP Dataset

Once the CLUP and the Zoning Ordinance have been approved, they constitute the basis for a number of different permits, such as the Locational Clearance, Subdivision Development Permit, Plan Approval, Building Permit and Business Permit. In the period before a revision of the CLUP is needed or decided on, these permits form a useful source of information and serves as a barometer for the land use development/changes in the respective municipality.

The situation in Ormoc City regarding Building Permits is as follows:

Situation Today The Building Permit is issued by the City Engineering Department, which also acts as the Office of the Building Official. There is a special Building Permit Section assigned for the task. The Building Permit, which actually consists of six licenses: line and grade / geodetic / tax-mapping (mandatory); architectural (mandatory); structural (mandatory); electrical (mandatory); sanitary / plumbing (mandatory); mechanical (optional), is recorded by hand in a ‘log book.’ Aside from the signed rubber stamp marks on the building plans the logbook is the only documentation.

The following records are captured for each Building Permit and comments are also made in case a digital (GIS) database system will be introduced:

Recorded Today:	GIS Harmonization:
‘Building Permit #’, for example 2K504124-B which is a unique ID number with the coding ‘2K5’ refers to year 2005; 04 refers to the month of April; 124 refers to a serial number of 3 alphanumeric (which means that maximum 999 permits can be issued per month); ‘-B’ refers to type of permit, which is Building Permit or it could also be O(ccupancy); F(encing); R(enovation) or D(emolition).	In a table object context proposed for a GIS, the unique number should be simplified to ‘2005 (year) 04 (month) 124 (serial number). The date recorded refers to when the application is forwarded (logged) to the Building Permit Section. The time for the approval process can obviously be measured by comparing with the ‘Date Issued’ data below. ‘Type of permit’ should be in a separate column. Likewise, as in most cases, a Locational Clearance has to secured before the Building Permit and it is therefore useful to include that Unique ID into the dataset for easy reference. It was not clear how the licenses were recorded, so maybe a special column is needed.
‘Date Issued’, for example September 10, 2005	If the existing Building Permit # (which also has a time annotation in the existing Logbook) indicates that there is a time gap between when the application was received and the permit granted, ‘Date Issued’ is justified.
‘’Name of Owner’ which also include an address (always the barangay, sometimes a street name) of the location of the building site (and not necessarily where the owner is residing)	The data should be separated to be clear: the ‘Name of Owner’ (which is actually the name of the Applicant) in one column and the ‘site address’ in another column. At the moment, Ormoc City has no functioning digital cadastre, which, aside from the Barangay would be a good address. Currently a name of the street/road will help to define the location. In the GIS it is always possible to retrieve latitude and longitude if the location has been recorded by a GPS.
‘Payment #’, which is the number of the receipt when the permit fee was paid
‘Amount Paid and ‘Date of Receipt’	Needs to be divided in two columns, one for ‘Amount Paid’ and another column for ‘Date of Receipt.’ The date of the receipt must always precede the release of the Building Permit.
‘Floor Area’ (in Sq. M) which is the component the fee is calculated from
‘Estimated project cost’ which is the component the fee is calculated from in case the Floor Area is not possible to define
‘Type of Building’ (and also the number of floors) which could be Residential, Apartment, Commercial, Institutional, Industrial. It is not clarified if these ‘types’ are the same as the zoning classifications.	Needs to be divided in two columns, one for ‘Type of Building’ and another column for ‘Number of Storeys’
‘Signature of the Applicant’	It is not clear what the purpose of the signature is. It cannot be encoded in a GIS without the ‘digital signature’ process, which would be quite superfluous, as some kind of notification will be given to the Applicant in any case.

Attempts have been made by the staff to organize the data in a digital format but malfunctioning hardware has restricted the efforts.

Proposal The proposal presents a very simplistic system based on the current ‘computer appreciation level’ in Ormoc City. The system can in the future be developed into a more sophisticated method such as a network corporate solution.

1	The Building Permit Logbook is translated into a digital format with the adjustments noted above. MS Excel is used and the spreadsheet will have the following content:
(Sample Records Here!)
2	A date for the change of mode is decided on, which will give enough time for preparation such as procuring hardware, installing software and conduct of the necessary training. (1 January 2006?)
3	From the agreed date onwards, building permit applications will be encoded in a digital format using MS Excel. Eventually double entry bookkeeping must be done until the staff feel confident with the new system.
4	At the first inspection / visit, staff from the Engineering Office brings a handheld GPS and takes a reading of the building site. Depending on the staff’s skills and experience, the capturing of each location will be done using the same methodology as detailed in Chapter… or more sophisticated recording will be made.
5	The GPS recordings from building sites will be handed over to the planning unit at regular intervals. The planning staff will translate the GPS readings into locations on the digital map of Ormoc City.

Distribution of Responsibilities
The Building Permit Unit under Engineering will be the prime user of the Municipal Building Permit GIS and consequently be the ‘caretaker’ or custodian of the table objects of the Excel spreadsheets.

The Planning Unit, which has the overall responsibility of spatial data in Ormoc City, will handle the task of keeping the building permit site map layer up to date.

Hardware Requirements
An up to date computer, an A3 printer and a GPS are needed for the GIS. The GPS and the printer can be used by other units within the Engineering Department. The cost for the hardware will be about ???? Pesos.

Software
MS Office with Excel is needed to manage the table object database. The Planning Unit will need GIS software such as Arc View and Arc Reader to provide the GIS to the Building Permit Unit. A freeware browser can be used by the Building Permit Unit in the beginning and later on ArcIMS can be used. The initial cost will be Pesos? however, the cost can be shared as the system will be used to serve all other municipal offices.

Training
Basic training in Windows and MS Office is needed (2-3 days?), including instructions on how to browse and print information from the GIS (1 day). Training on how to use a GPS is also needed (half day). The Planning Unit has skills in all operations needed to manage the GIS.

Advantages
The data is secure provided that regular backups of the ‘digital logbook’ are done. What will happen today if the existing hardcopy logbook is stolen or if there is a fire destroying the logbook?

There is a great advantage for a digital archiving because it is easier to search, analyze and reproduce.

The Building Permit Unit will have a comprehensive and transparent documentation of its tasks and will be able to analyze, monitor, make projections, and present the essentials. If the data is properly encoded in the system it can answer questions such as:

‘Show me the different types of building permits for 2006 and the distribution over the City’;
‘Show me which Barangay has the most intensive building activity in 2006’;
‘Show me if there are Building Permits in 2006, which have not been proceeded by a Locational Permit
‘Show me (on a map) projects which permits have not been paid’;
‘Show me how much revenue can be collected for 2006’;
‘Give me the names of all the applicants who have not paid their fees’.

The Planning Unit will have a good picture of what’s going on in the municipality with regard to land use changes, and this is very useful information in the next revision of the CLUP.

Similar GIS application can be made for the Locational Clearance documentation, at it will be easier to start with this one since the Planning Unit is in charge of issuing these.

Getting a building permit is a long way from a one-stop-shop process as it is now. It is a tedious exercise for the applicant to get all the signatures for the permit. Nine signatures are needed today from different persons whose availability might be restricted and lengthen the process. Digital archiving will definitely facilitate a transition to a more client friendly system.,

4.18.02 Case Study - A Synchronized Business Permit Application cum CLUP Data Set

Presentation of the Study Area

For the study on synchronized Business Permit Application cum CLUP data set, the study area was Ormoc City. The study focused on their current process in handling the issuance of Building Permits, and a survey was done in Barangay District 7 located in the Central Business District (CBD). District 7 is a highly commercialized and a completely zoned barangay that consists of one whole block located next to the shopping mall in the urban center of Ormoc City, with 52 business activities that have been issued Business Permits.
In order to compare the handling of Business Permits in a city like Ormoc, with that of a low-income LGU, the same study was also conducted in the Municipality of Laurel, Batangas.

Situation Today in Ormoc City
The issuance of Business Permits is handled by the Licensing and Franchising Office under the Office of the City Mayor and is renewed every year. The majority of permits applied for is from the service sector and in particular, the transportation businesses. There was a sharp increase in the number of permits issued when the deregulation of issuance of tricycle plate numbers was implemented. Before that, the issuance of transport operation was controlled by the Sangguniang Panlungsod. The issuance of Business Permits requires the applicant to secure a Barangay Clearance, Tax Certificate, SSS or Pag-IBIG Clearance, Health Clearance and a Locational Clearance.

The Locational Clearance is issued by the Planning office to ensure that the business activity is in line with the current zoning ordinance.

In 2005, the City issued 3,456 business permits where 2,680 were renewal permits and 776 were new.

The required clearances needed in getting a business permit are only necessary for first time applicants. When a permit holder applies for a renewal, the clearances submitted by previous applications are still valid. In effect, those business activities located in zoned areas that are in conflict with the land use still continue to have valid permits, if these permits were issued before the current zoning was approved.

When a business permit is issued or renewed, the permit gets a new license number. When a new permit is issued, the business holder also gets a license plate number to display in the business facility. This plate shows the license number of the first year when the business applied for a permit. When the permit is renewed, the owner gets a new license number but still keeps the old plate. Proof of renewal is instead displayed with a tax sticker attached to the plate.

The permit records are kept in a computer system developed by the Information Technology Center under the Planning Office. The system is a user friendly system with simple forms for encoding data from the applications. It also assigns permit numbers, computes fees and penalties, among other functions.

The system is based on a network solution with a centrally stored database that keeps the tables containing the data of the Business Permit Records such as taxpayer’s name, business name, address, tax base and fees, license number, date and other data.

Situation Today in Laurel
In the Municipality of Laurel, the issuance of business permits is handled by the Mayor´s Office and is renewed every year. The officer in charge of the issuance of business permits is License Inspector Joe De Sagun. The majority of permits applied for are fish cages and sari-sari stores. In 2005, the number of business permits issued in Laurel was 245, of which 60 was for fish cages.

The records kept on hand are handwritten books and the permit numbers issued start at number 1 for each year.

The records are divided into two separate books with one book specifically used for Fish Cages. It contains information on the number of cages, capacity of the cage and other information. The other book is for other types of business activities which contains information on the business permits based on the logged-in records. These include the Permit Number, Business Name, Address, Nature of Business, Amount Paid, Official Receipt Number, Date Received, Remarks (New or Renewal), Date Released and the signature of the Licensing Officer.

Proposal
The proposal presents a method to gather and to build up a Business GIS for the LGU that can be used for the issuance of Business permits, for the renewal of the CLUP, and for other activities such as the preparation of statistical maps on development in the LGU, and tourist information.

The proposed tables to keep digital records of the Business Permits is a start up level for LGUs without current digital records and let them get started in MS Excel where a table sheet containing the attributes are stored and then linked to a GIS layer holding the surveyed locations of the business establishments.

In the case of Ormoc City and other LGUs with current digital systems, the suggestion is to instead keep the attribute database that is currently being used, and extend it with a link to the GIS.

Attributes
The attributes kept in the Business Permit Record are suggested to be divided into two tables: “Table 1” contains information about the actual permit with regard to ownership and type of business establishment, and “Table 2” contains data about payment of fees and taxes.

Table 1: “Business Permit”. A similar table is also found in excel format in Chapter 5.03.38.

Attribute name:	Description:
PER_ID	Business Permit ID, Unique ID for the Business Permit, the permit ID should be sustained over time and not be changed upon renewal.
PER_YR	Permit Year, The year of which the permit is valid
PER_HOLD	Permit Holder, Name of the applicant for the Business Permit
BIZ_NM	Name of Business, Name of the Business facility
B_NM	Barangay Name, Name of Barangay where the business is located.
BIZ_ADR	Business Address, Address were the business is located
BIZ_CLASS	Classification of Business, the classification of businesses are “Retailers”, “Services”, “Manufacturers” or “Banks and Other Financial Institutions”
BIZ_LINE	Line of Business, Line of business activity, for example “Internet Café”, “Petrol Station”, “Sari-sari store” “Supermarket,” etc.
EMP_NO	Number of Employees, Number of Employees working in the business.
PER_RM	Permit Remarks, State whether the permit is “NEW” or “RENEWED”
LIC_DT	License Date, Date when license was issued

The table can be extended to facilitate specific needs in different LGUs. For example: to handle additional information about fish cages such as those in Laurel.

Table 2: “Business Permit Fees and Taxes”

Attribute name:	Description:
PER_ID	Business Permit ID, Unique ID for the Business Permit, the permit ID should be sustained over time and not be changed upon renewal.
PER_TAX	Tax Base, Basis for taxation of the business activity
LIC_FEE	License Fee, LGU fee for issuance of license
INSP_FEE	Inspection Fee, Annual Fee for inspection of business activity
POL_FEE	Police Fee, Fee for Police Services
HP_FEE	Health Permit Fee, Fee for issuance of Health Permit
GC_FEE	Garbage Collection Fee, Fee for collection of garbage.
SP_FEE	Sanitary Permit Fee, Fee for issuance of Sanitary Permit.
FI_FEE	Fire Inspection Fee, Fee for fire inspection of business facility.
PEN	Penalty, Penalty for delayed payment

GIS Layer

In order to utilize GIS for planning and monitoring, it is necessary to have the locations of the businesses stored in a GIS layer that is possible to link to the Business Permit Records.

If the LGU has an updated and accurate address database, GIS Records may be linked to that layer. But in most cases, there is no such data available at this time. The suggestion is to create a specific point feature layer to hold the location of the business facility and the Unique Permit ID to be able to link with the Records. It is also suggested that the GIS layer should contain a link to photos of the business facility.

GIS Table: “Business Permit GIS”

Attribute name:	Description:
PER_ID	Business Permit ID, Unique ID for the Business Permit to be able to link to the Business Permit Records
PHOTO	Photo, Link to digital photo of the business facility

Method

Encode the attribute data in the Excel tables for the current Business Permit Records

Conduct a GPS survey of the business facility to gather the locations of the businesses and to build up GIS data containing the coordinates and the Business Permit ID

Set a date for when to start using the new method. From then on, all new Business Permits issued must be surveyed with a GPS.

When a new Business Permit is to be issued, an inspection is conducted where the inspector brings a handheld GPS. The inspector makes readings form the Business location and takes digital photos of the business activity.

The GPS reading and the digital photo form the business site will be handed over to the planning unit together with the Business Permit ID. The planning staff will then translate the GPS reading into a digital map containing the Permit ID and a link to the photo.

Distribution of Responsibilities The Licensing Officer under the Mayor’s office is the prime user of the Business Permit Records. It is the custodian of these records whether they are kept in an analog or digital format. It is suggested that in case of a shift from an analog record to a record kept in Excel, the custodian should still be the Licensing Officer.

The Planning Unit which has the overall responsibility for spatial data in most LGUs will have the responsibility of building up and keeping the Business Permit spatial layer up to date.

Advantages
The Licensing Office has a geographical view of the distribution of business permits in the municipality/city for easy reference and monitoring. The Business Permit layer can be used with the zoning layer to make a map that will display Business Permits that are in compatible or not compatible with zoning ordinance.

During the initial survey of Business Permits, it was found out that some business activities lacked the permits that could be used for monitoring purposes.

The Business Permit GIS can also be used for other purposes such as the preparation of tourist maps to show the locations of important tourism facilities. It can also be used to analyze and monitor the development of business activities in the LGU. If the data is properly encoded, the system can provide answers to questions such as:

Show the distribution of Business Permits in the LGU and the density of Business Permits per Barangay
Show the Business Permit Holders that have not paid their fees for 2006
Show the Barangays with highest increase of business activities between 2005-2007
Show a map of all the Internet Cafes in the municipality / city
Show all the hazardous business activities located in an area zoned as residential

The Mayor’s office will have a good picture of the distribution of business activities to be used for monitoring of permits.

4.18.03 Case Study – A Synchronized Urban Poor cum CLUP Dataset

Ormoc Situation Today
The underlying reasons for the existence of informal settlements are poverty, population growth, urbanization, land scarcity and environmental hazards. In informal settlements most of the houses have been built by the families who occupy them. Infrastructure and services are lacking, and the house materials are of a temporary nature. Some informal settlements illegally occupy land that is often in a hazardous location. The inhabitants usually work in the informal sectors and their incomes are low.

The general solution adopted to low-income informal settlements by most of the ‘formal’ stakeholders in the Philippines is the relocation of the dwellers to new homes in subsidized housing areas usually located far from their areas of work or livehood. However, the pace of such transformation activities may accompany negative effects in the form of unaffordable rents and extended commuting. As a result, the relocated families tend to return to their former areas to find a source of income. Consequently, other solutions have to be sought in order to address these effects.

Urban development and wealth is created by the inhabitants of the area through economic, cultural and social activities. Stable conditions that support property rights imply the prediction of risks in order to mitigate them, thus promoting sustainable development. Besides land, inhabitants of urban areas need public services like water and sewerage, transportation, power etc., and social services for health, education and cultural activities. Local authorities need to be able to provide suitable conditions for these services and guarantee the necessary coordination among the different activities. In order to do this, local (and central) authorities require access to information about the land, its use, and the actors using the land in the area.

While studying the prepared CLUPs in the pilot municipalities/cities, it was found that the housing sector of the CLUP does not fully recognize the need to focus on the situation for the urban poor, and the requisite actions to halt the proliferation of informal settlements, and to improve the situation for informal settlers. The housing sector component of the CLUP normally contains the usual government policies and some pilot projects, but there is hardly any analysis and substantial proposals for alleviating the housing situation. Comprehensive overviews are not found and the Plans are not able to present any documentation on the low-income informal settlements, which should be a minimum requirement. While the municipality / city is in charge of providing services and implementing programs and projects for poverty alleviation, such actions are not found in the CLUP.

An ongoing project involving HLURB, HUDCC and Quezon City will hopefully result in more detailed guidelines on how to map informal settlements which will be added to the GIS Cookbook in the future.

In the Ormoc City CLUP, there is also very minimal information about informal settlements. Currently there is a specific unit within the Social Welfare Department called the Urban Poor Unit with a staff of four persons. This Unit coordinates with the National Housing Authority which is the agency responsible for providing housing for informal settlers through its various housing programs. However, this is not reflected in the city’s CLUP. Three years ago the Unit made an inventory and the output was a table showing the number of underprivileged families by Barangay. The information about the informal settlers was provided by Barangay officials. The Mayor has requested for a new survey.

(Picture of data from Urban Poor Unit)

Proposal
The proposal presents a simple system based on the current ‘computer appreciation level’ in Ormoc City. The system can be developed into a more sophisticated one in the future, such as a network corporate solution.

1	Two Excel spreadsheets will be sufficient to start with. One that shows the distribution of informal settler families by Barangays with the following indicators

2	The data in combination with the Demography Basic Information can be used as a base for analysis such as: ‘Show me what Barangays have the most concentration of informal settlers families in relation to total population (and the Barangay land area)’	(Map with Barangay boundaries with an overlay of informal settlers families per total Barangay population density)
	Note that the common denominator for 'Population' must be synchronized in the CLUP data. Should it be 'Household' (one household can house more than one family), 'Family' (one family consists of six persons on an average) or 'Persons?’
3	If the settlers are occupying extensive land areas, the following table will illustrate the key indicators:

4	During the field inventory staff from Urban Poor Unit brings a handheld GPS and takes readings of the ‘corners’ of the informal settlement area. Depending on staff skills and experience, the process of recording location by GPS will be done using the same methodology as given in Chapter 4.19.01???, or a more sophisticated recording can be made.
5	The GPS recordings are handed over to the planning unit. The planning staff will translate the GPS readings into locations on the digital map of Ormoc City.

Distribution of Responsibilities
The Urban Poor Unit under the Social Welfare Department will be the prime user of the Municipal informal settlers GIS and consequently will be the ‘caretaker’ or custodian of the table objects of the Excel spreadsheets.

The Planning Unit, which has the overall responsibility of spatial data in Ormoc City, will be in charge of keeping the map layers up to date.

Hardware Requirements
An up to date computer, an A3 printer and a GPS are needed for the GIS. The GPS can be borrowed from the Planning Department and it is also recommended that the Planning Department help the Urban Poor Unit with printouts of the informal settlers maps.

Software
MS Office with Excel is needed to manage the table object database. The Planning Unit will need GIS software such as ArcView and Arc Reader to provide the GIS to the Urban Poor Unit. A freeware browser mention can be used by the Urban Poor Unit in the beginning and later on ArcIMS can be used. The initial cost will be?????,. The software however can be used to serve all other municipal offices.

Training
Basic training in Windows and MS Office is needed (2-3 days?). Likewise, there should be training on how to browse and print information from the GIS (1 day), including training on how to use a GPS (half day). The Planning Unit has skills in all operations needed to manage the GIS.

Advantages
The data is secure, provided that regular backups are done.

Other advantages for a digital archiving include ease of update, reproduction and analysis.

The Urban Poor Unit will have a comprehensive and transparent documentation of its tasks and will be able to analyze, monitor, project and present the essentials. If the data is properly encoded in the system, it can answer questions such as:

‘Show which Barangays had the largest growth of informal settlement areas between 2000 and 2005’;
‘Show (on a map) which informal settlements are occupying private land’.

The Planning Unit will have a good picture of what’s going on in the municipality/city with regard to expansion of informal settlements, which is very useful information for the next revision of the CLUP.

Similar GIS applications can be made for the Housing Improvement Programs that are introduced to prevent illegal settlements.

4.18.04 Change Detection Satellite