Construction activity has significantly increased this year from last year according to a recent report from TRAKiT, PDS’ comprehensive development-tracking software. If these numbers remain steady, 2016 could end as the best construction season since the housing crash in 2007-08.

“Our permit numbers have grown from 1,097 to 1,298 permits for the same time period over last year”, says Brian Sims, CBO, PDS’ chief building official.

These numbers include all permit activity including new structures, additions, renovation/alterations, HVAC, automatic fire suppression systems, manual fire alarm systems, etc. With this trend, inspections will be sure to increase. To date, inspection numbers are roughly 400 more this year than they were this time last year.

The chart below—from builderonline.com—demonstrates housing start and completion numbers.

PDS has seen new housing starts increase from 43 to 52 permits this year to date. New commercial permits have grown from two the previous year to eight this year to date.

“Hopefully, activity will increase and help drive the economy back in Northern Kentucky,” says Sims.

With the workload increasing steadily, PDS needed to hire an additional entry-level inspector to replace one of the positions laid off during 2010. That inspector started in the building department last fall in an effort to get him trained for this building season.

“Our new inspector has come along very well. He is now performing inspections on his own and is really helping out with our current workload,” says Sims.

This brings PDS’ total number of building inspectors to six. This staffing level is expected to hold for now even if permits rise slightly in the future.

Customers interacting with NKAPC staff now have the option of paying all fees with credit cards. This expanded use of plastic payment comes as an added benefit of the agency’s project-tracking program named TRAKiT.

NKAPC implemented the new software last July which better tracks and coordinates the activities of the agency; this includes: building and zoning permits; building, zoning, and infrastructure inspections; zoning and property maintenance code enforcement actions; subdivision platting and related infrastructure construction plans; and, planning and other large-scale projects.

These activities were tracked previously with a variety of software products, some of which carried growing annual costs, were incompatible, and required additional equipment to be maintained off-site.

TRAKiT allows for all these activities to be integrated on a GIS base, allowing NKAPC staff and outside agencies to communicate better with one another on related activities. It also facilitates all agencies involved with Kenton County development to be more knowledgeable and productive in their responsibilities. And most importantly, the system allows staff to get needed information quicker, reducing times for plan review and increasing customer service satisfaction.

“TRAKiT is working great,” said Scott Hiles, CPC, NKAPC’s director of infrastructure engineering. “It’s giving us the ability to track development information more efficiently than we’ve ever been able to before.”

While NKAPC has been the long-time managing partner of a robust geographic information system (LINK-GIS), there has always been a disconnect between that system and those that track permits, projects, and code enforcement.

TRAKiT sets atop LINK-GIS data, allowing information from different activities to be coordinated by address. This makes the GIS data all the more valuable to Kenton County communities and makes development and code enforcement data more accessible, both to staff and to the public.

TRAKiT also allows all the agency’s field inspectors to use iPads in the field to keep track of inspection activities and report results in real time. This permits inspectors to streamline their efforts, reduce time needed to input data, and ultimately to save the agency and the taxpayers money.

The software package includes a public web portal which allows contractors and citizens to access information regarding development and code enforcement activities. While the original One Stop Shop website previously included access to information, this new portal expands the agency’s online capabilities, making it possible to apply for certain permits, pay for them using a credit card, schedule inspections, report a problem, and review inspector’s field reports all directly from that website.

“TRAKiT is facilitating the coordination of all our responsibilities,” said Dennis Gordon, FAICP, executive director. “This added expansion of our ability to accept credit card payments is an added bonus for our customers.”

“With trends towards digitizing plans and documents, as well as streamlining processes, this new technology may eventually lead to a completely paperless mode of business,” Gordon concluded.