LUIS Overview 2007

The City of Colorado Springs creates, tracks and stores all of it’s Planning information within an in-house application referred to as LUIS (Land Use Information System). However, LUIS can not simply be classified as an application. It is an umbrella term referring to several integrated components, which manage a data-warehouse of spatial & tabular planning information. There are 5 primary components involved with LUIS: DevelopmentView, LUISplanner, LDRS, LUIStrack and SiteMapApp. All components are web-based, accessing data from a central SQL Server database.

Internal Planning staff uses LUIS to login, research, track, update and invoice their projects. Management staff also uses LUIS for the above purposes but have the additional abilities to process both individual and overall planning system benchmarks. Externally the public is able to initiate, research and track planning projects.

Planning Projects are initiated in one of two ways. People can either, come to the Planning office and deal with a planner directly, or they can use the LUIS tool DevelopmentView. DevelopmentView is designed to be a public viewer of the City’s OrthoPhotography (Low Resolution 2’) along with limited GIS data. User can browse around the map with various ‘zoom’ and ‘pan’ functions, or can search and find specific parcels by address, owner name or parcel number. The application is also linked to the County Assessor’s and City Planning’s (LDRS) databases for quick information lookup. Lastly the public is able to submit Electronic Planning pre-applications. The applicant simply locates and selects the property they wish to initiate a planning action on, hit the “Pre-App” button, fill in the pop- up form, and submit it. Not only does this option allow the applicant the ability to submit a planning project from their home, it directly contacts the planner involved with projects in the applicants area, it creates an item within LUIS and populates it with pertinent information about the project.

Most projects still come in the front door however, and require planning staff to enter the project(s) into the system. The planning login process is done thru the LUISplanner & SiteMapApp tools. This login, creates a planning project, assigns planning staff, and initiate the foundational information of a project within the database. Along with tabular data input, related documents are scanned and a geographic point is created. Through the ‘Document Management’ portion of Luisplanner, scanned images are uploaded to a server, profiled and linked to their associated planning project. The SiteMapApp tool creates a geographic point and assigns key attributes tying that point to the appropriate LDRS records. Once a project has been logged in, the planner who was assigned the project will be able to view, edit and track it from their desktop using LUISplanner. This is not only true for current projects, but for any project that has ever been assigned to that planner. It is in essence a journaling tool for the planner. This tracking aspect is also quite useful for management to evaluate staff’s workload and follow those items that take longer than usual.

LUISplanner also has one more feature worth noting. The ‘Fee Calculator’ takes the complex planning fee schedule and automates it. This cuts down on calculation errors so that all clients are billed the same and it ties an invoice number to the project so that all billing can be tracked.

The LDRS (Land Development Review System) portion of LUIS was really the first piece developed in the comprehensive system Planning has today. While many of the functions it used to perform have been taken over by LUISplanner, it remains as the data-warehouse for all Planning data. Built upon a SQL server platform, this RDBS not only stores all data but distributes that information to a multitude of Planning and non-planning applications. LDRS is only accessible to the public via a link within City View & DevelopmentView where a very limited amount of data can be viewed. Still the data in LDRS provides the foundation for all Planning applications and their related information.

Lastly, LUIStrack allows the public to track planning projects from submittal to final disposition. Anyone can search the planning database by Tax Schedule number, Address, Planner name, Project name, File number, etc. and have a detailed sheet of relevant information pertaining to the project’s status returned.

LUIS is an on-going project. While it is fully incorporated into the planning process today, add-ons and enhancements are continuously being developed and debugged. Under the next phase of the project the public will not only be able to track projects thru LUIStrack as they are logged in but be able to graphically see where those projects are thru City View. For a historical overview of LUIS visit: http://www.springsgov.com/Page.asp?NavID=1172.

All these Applications can be found at the Planning applications Home Intranet site: http://web-plan/PlanningPages/PlanAppsPage.htm

Additionally: DevelopmentView can be found at: http://www.springsgov.com/planning Planning Internet home page http://gis.springsgov.com/ GIS map center

LDRS search engine: http://web-plan/pds/LDRSearch.htm Direct link

LUIStrac can be found on at: http://www.springsgov.com/planning Planning Internet home page http://www.springsgov.com/pln/luispublic/luispublic.asp Direct link