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Project Goal
The City of Waukesha Department of Public Works performs roadway and sidewalk construction on an annual basis, which may cause disturbance to properties near the right-of-way. To reduce liability, the City determined that it should receive consent from property owners to proceed with construction projects and repairs in the vicinity of their parcel. As this new requirement left limited time to get work orders to its contractor, a novel approach was needed to perform inspections, send notices, and receive approval. The project’s goal was to streamline the performance of inspections, generate mailings with unique QR codes for each parcel, and send specific approvals from residents back to the city (digitally) in a matter of days.Business Problem Solved
Historically, construction notices to residents would require sending blanket mailings to the affected properties and the return of signed paper agreements. This process was time-consuming both in the preparation of mailings and processing of returned agreements. It left an exceptionally short window for inspections to be performed and all agreements to be gathered before construction could begin.
This problem was solved primarily by using Survey123 and URL parameters to pre-load information into inspection forms, such as owner mailing addresses and parcel information. A report template was used to generate mailers with unique QR codes to be sent to each property, linking to a response survey that was tied to the original inspection. This way, managers could see responses coming in live from residents in construction areas. Information on response rates and inspection statistics are available through a Hub site and dashboard.
Technology Implemented
• Survey123 and Survey123 Connect, including URL parameters and custom report templates
• Field Maps
• Dashboards
• Hub
Development Team Biography
Brad Blumer, GISP: Brad is the GIS Coordinator for the City of Waukesha and has held that position since 2018. Prior to that, he was at Milwaukee County for 6 years as the Senior GIS Analyst in the Department of Transportation and GIS Analyst in the Land Information Office. His first full-time GIS job (and foray into local government) was as the GIS Analyst for the City of Janesville. He graduated with Geography degrees from Michigan State University (M.S.) and the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater (B.S.).
Megan Roessler: Megan is the GIS Specialist for the City of Waukesha and has been part of the city’s GIS Division since 2020. She graduated with degrees in Cartography in GIS (M.S.) and Art History (B.A.) from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.