The City of Houston Planning and Development Department announced a comprehensive relaunch of the PlatTracker system Monday, April 14, creating a more efficient method to submit subdivision plat applications and to follow the platting process. The new PlatTracker also allows the public to search for recently recorded subdivision plats and stay informed about land development proposals in their neighborhood.
“PlatTracker is one of the most critical tools that impacts our development customers and the work we do every day,” said Planning and Development Department Director Vonn Tran.
“It is often the first point of contact for our customers and the gateway to kickstart the staff review and Planning Commission approval process. Those decisions have long-lasting impact and ultimately shape our city,” Tran said. “The Department has fully leveraged the capabilities of the system we have been using over the last decade, so we are excited to modernize our customers’ user experience and still have room to grow.”
This effort reflects more than two years of research, development, testing and collaboration between various divisions of the Planning and Development Department, Houston Information Technology Services Department, and Spruce Technology, a third-party technical service provider. Before launching the new PlatTracker, the Planning Department created a focus group inviting the most frequent PlatTracker applicants to test the new system and give feedback.
Over the last 12 years, PlatTracker has received more than 51,00 combined plat submittals, name changes, extensions of approval, and recordation applications, with an average of 4,300 customers per year.
It enables:
- land planners, civil engineers and surveyors to submit subdivision plat applications for review and presentation to the Houston Planning Commission
- applicants and the public to track the progress of plat applications
- general public to keep up with land development proposals in their neighborhoods
- regional agencies that have an interest in land development in Houston and Houston’s extraterritorial jurisdiction to share files and communicate their comments to the Planning staff for each application.
The new PlatTracker continues to serve the established purposes and will additionally:
- improve efficiency with a dashboard information display
- streamline the application process
- provide an intuitive user interface that is easy to navigate
- improve search functionality
- integrate external systems such as payments and geographic information systems
- optimize cloud file storage that enables remote access, sharing, and notation
The Planning and Development Department is also working on an overhaul of the Houston Preservation Tracker, which is currently in user testing and planned for launch this summer.
Source: City of Houston (edited by d-mars.com)
