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Planning goes interactive
Burbank to invite input from the public by broadcasting status of projects online using Google Maps.
By Jeremy Oberstein
BURBANK — Using one of the Internet’s most popular search engines, Burbank unveiled its newest tool to help residents stay informed of planning projects, officials said Monday.
The planning projects map, run by Google, is an interactive list of all residential, commercial and industrial projects throughout Burbank that are being processed or have been recently approved or denied.
Each project icon on the map includes information about the project and a link to its current status, said Burbank Principal Planner Michael Forbes, who created the map.
“We’re always looking for a way to get the public involved in planning projects and to get more information out to the public,” he said.
In the past, Burbank listed all of its current planning projects online, but not in an interactive format, which made them difficult to navigate, Forbes said.
“We had our projects online, but it wasn’t really easy to see,” he said. “We’ve been looking for a while for ways to make it easier for us to communicate and for the public to get status updates on projects.
“We’ve been looking . . . and just recently, within the last year, found Google Maps was easy to use. It’s not a new tool that someone has to learn. It’s a good tool.”
The Planning Division will upgrade the site at least once a week, Forbes said.
“It took quite a while to initially put it together and get it online,” he said. “Now that that initial step is done, it’s very easy to update.”
While Google Maps has been a popular portal on the Internet, some city planning departments, such as those in Los Angeles and Glendale, have not adopted the technology.
“We have nothing like that,” Glendale Senior Planner Jeff Hamilton said. “I’m totally envious. We hope to do something like that within the next year, but have been told that our technology is further off than we would have liked.”
Los Angeles also lags behind Burbank’s mapping technology.
“We don’t have anything that interactive,” said John Butcher, geographic information systems chief for the Los Angeles City Planning Division. “We have one set of maps and biweekly reports that show the cases that have been filed.”
Los Angeles maps are in a file format similar to what Burbank used to run, Butcher said.
In addition to the Planning Division, other Burbank departments use Google services to help its users navigate websites.
BurbankBus has used Google Transit to help riders navigate bus schedules and distances since November 2006, said Ryan Barton, an official with Moore & Associates, the marketing firm that runs the advertising efforts for BurbankBus.
“When we launched Google Transit, we saw a 25% increase in ridership,” he said.
Of those new riders, most were new to BurbankBus, which Barton attributed to Google’s immense popularity.
An estimated 4 billion search queries were conducted at Google Search, which includes all Google products like Maps and Transit, accounting for 54% of all search queries in September, according to Nielsen-Online research.
The next highest search engine, Yahoo!, had about 2.5 billion searches, Nielsen said.
The Planning Division’s use of Google Maps is the beginning of an ongoing process through which they hope to upgrade its Internet accessibility, Forbes said.
“Ultimately, we would like to get a more interactive version of our zoning maps,” he said. “This is the first step in looking for more opportunities.”
The Planning Division’s map can be seen at www.burbank ca.org/planning/projectsmap .html
The planning projects map, run by Google, is an interactive list of all residential, commercial and industrial projects throughout Burbank that are being processed or have been recently approved or denied.
Each project icon on the map includes information about the project and a link to its current status, said Burbank Principal Planner Michael Forbes, who created the map.
“We’re always looking for a way to get the public involved in planning projects and to get more information out to the public,” he said.
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“We had our projects online, but it wasn’t really easy to see,” he said. “We’ve been looking for a while for ways to make it easier for us to communicate and for the public to get status updates on projects.
“We’ve been looking . . . and just recently, within the last year, found Google Maps was easy to use. It’s not a new tool that someone has to learn. It’s a good tool.”
The Planning Division will upgrade the site at least once a week, Forbes said.
“It took quite a while to initially put it together and get it online,” he said. “Now that that initial step is done, it’s very easy to update.”
While Google Maps has been a popular portal on the Internet, some city planning departments, such as those in Los Angeles and Glendale, have not adopted the technology.
“We have nothing like that,” Glendale Senior Planner Jeff Hamilton said. “I’m totally envious. We hope to do something like that within the next year, but have been told that our technology is further off than we would have liked.”
Los Angeles also lags behind Burbank’s mapping technology.
“We don’t have anything that interactive,” said John Butcher, geographic information systems chief for the Los Angeles City Planning Division. “We have one set of maps and biweekly reports that show the cases that have been filed.”
Los Angeles maps are in a file format similar to what Burbank used to run, Butcher said.
In addition to the Planning Division, other Burbank departments use Google services to help its users navigate websites.
BurbankBus has used Google Transit to help riders navigate bus schedules and distances since November 2006, said Ryan Barton, an official with Moore & Associates, the marketing firm that runs the advertising efforts for BurbankBus.
“When we launched Google Transit, we saw a 25% increase in ridership,” he said.
Of those new riders, most were new to BurbankBus, which Barton attributed to Google’s immense popularity.
An estimated 4 billion search queries were conducted at Google Search, which includes all Google products like Maps and Transit, accounting for 54% of all search queries in September, according to Nielsen-Online research.
The next highest search engine, Yahoo!, had about 2.5 billion searches, Nielsen said.
The Planning Division’s use of Google Maps is the beginning of an ongoing process through which they hope to upgrade its Internet accessibility, Forbes said.
“Ultimately, we would like to get a more interactive version of our zoning maps,” he said. “This is the first step in looking for more opportunities.”
The Planning Division’s map can be seen at www.burbank ca.org/planning/projectsmap .html
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