May 17
2011
On April 14, 2011 at 11 am PST /2 pm EST, BasicGov is hosting a complimentary webinar with the City of Beaumont, California. In the webinar participants will learn how Beaumont made the decision to move to a cloud computing / web-based system (click to read more about what they are using).
The webinar will also provide participants with an overview of how to improve municipal planning and building permits processes with affordable technology, with or without internal IT support.
The webinar will demo Planning software that:
• Tracks dates and milestones online
• Automatically schedules notifications, proceedings, hearings and other critical deadlines
• Reports on project status to multi-users and multiple departments
• Provides access to information in the office or field
The webinar will also demo Permits & Inspections software that:
• Automates scheduling of field inspections and reviews
• Prints permit related documents in seconds
• Provides access to permit history in multiple departments, in the office or field
• Reports with dashboard to show work completed or outstanding
May 17
2011
As we lead up to an educational webinar scheduled for February 23 about implementing green buildings in your municipality, we will have a series of blog posts discussing this area. We’ll also incorporate blog posts from industry expert, Chris Cheatham and Bob Kobet, guest speakers on our green building webinar.
Government agencies (federal, state and local) are providing incentives and more demanding building codes for construction of new, green buildings, or renovation of existing, non-green buildings.
Some of the existing incentive programs include:
- Expedited review for permitting processes which lower the amount of time it takes to receive a building permit.
- Density bonuses which allow green buildings to stand out from regular buildings by exempting them from some permitting laws. This can include an increase in floor area ratio or the height of the building, allowing more space to be rented out.
- Tax credits and abatements may be made available to allow the owner of a green building to be able to lower taxes or be exempt from paying taxes for a certain amount of time.
At the state government level, here are some examples of incentives in action:
- Hawaii recently passed a bill requiring faster permitting processes to LEED buildings certified at silver or higher.
- Maryland, New Mexico, New York, and Oregon all have tax credits available at different amounts corresponding to different levels of LEED certification.
- Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Washington offer grants that correlate with the LEED certification level mainly for schools but also for the construction of new homes and renovation of existing homes.
- 34 states have LEED requirements for their government buildings.
- Many states also provide economic incentives to the private sector to encourage green building construction.
Examples of incentives in action in local governments:
- Nearly 200 cities in the U.S. have adopted LEED standards for their government buildings. Many cities offer economic, government funded incentives for the construction of green buildings.
- Oakland, California is providing technical assistance, building guidelines, and promotion for free to green buildings.
- Many other cities are supporting green standards such as Arlington, Virginia’s Green Building Incentive Program, Austin, Texas’ Energy’s Green Building Program, and Portland, Oregon’s Green Investment Fund.
Watch for next blog post about green buildings and some of the challenges for government agencies.
If you are interested in attending our green building webinar, register here https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/674916328
And if you want to see a basic definition of green buildings, click here www.epa.gov/greenbuilding/
Click here to see source for some of this information.
