Automated Land Development Applications

AGENDA

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• Yarra Valley Water

• Land Development Process

• GIS Automation • Business Rules Engine

• Automated Spatial Analysis

• Questions

….Encourage GIS community to embrace GIS Automation

YARRA VALLEY WATER

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• Yarra Valley Water is 1 of 3 Melbourne Water retailers.

~600 staff

Owns and maintains

over 18,000 km’s of

Water, Recycle Water

and Sewer mains.

Servicing over 800,000

properties

~2 Million customers

LAND DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

In 2013 Yarra Valley Water released

easyACCESS, a Web Portal providing

developers / consultants / customers with

the ability to self-service their

development applications or to obtain

asset information relating to their property.

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Any new land development project is likely to require water and sewerage infrastructure

EASYACCESS

easyACCESS introduced the following key initiatives:

• The ability for Accredited Consultants and Licensed Surveyors to submit and review

development applications (Property Information) • Upload their designs for estate and development stages directly into the system via an interactive

web portal

• Ability to upload planned sewer and water assets through automation directly into the

GIS via a pre-defined CAD format. (Asset Information) • Provides more exposure to what’s being planned and YVW prioritise major infrastructure projects

• Allows for better planning around abutting development regions

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• Provides customers with the ability to purchase information

products such as Asset Plans, Sewer Depth and Offset

Plans and Property Sewerage Plans online. • Previously required phone calls or emails into YVW (manual)

• Provides an automated response with no YVW involvement

where the appropriate data is available.

DEVELOPMENT APPLICATIONS BUSINESS RULES / GIS AUTOMATION

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LAND DEVELOPMENT APPLICATIONS

• On average, YVW’s receives around

20,000 development applications per

annum – all different sizes • 1 lot alterations to 200 lot developments

• Before any customer extends their

dwelling, builds a pool / garage / pergola

/ shed / retaining wall or adds a dual

occupancy to it’s residency, it’s important

that they get approval from YVW.

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• Primary purpose is to ensure the service supply for customers and

the protection of YVW’s assets

EASYACCESS - OLD WAY - NEW WAY

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The old process:

The new easyACCESS process:

WEB PORTAL

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Intuitive / Easy to use

Modern web technology

Provides a Step by Step

process

Simple search functionality

Ability to track and view

past transactions

Outlines predefined costs

BUSINESS RULES ENGINE – BEHIND THE SCENES

• FICO is used by easyACCESS to automatically process land development applications

• Web services are used to call different business rule processes • A defined interactive process flow is used to gather the required information for an application.

Eg. Like an insurance application, where relevant questions are asked along the way

• Example: Multi Water & Sewer development can have over 300 separate process flow rules • Business Rules determine:

- what information is required to be obtained from the GIS

- what is supplied in response to customer

- what products and costs are associated to application

- if encumbrances are required to be added to the property statement

• The same business rule can be used across different applications to guarantee

consistency. Eg. Single &/or Multi apps both call the ‘Water available?’ service

• Where further information is required, an automated referral is triggered to up to

16 separate teams within Yarra Valley Water where a manual review is required.

Eg. Growth planning section needs to provide information on major assets which are yet to be built

The FICO application is user friendly and is managed/updated by business users

not developers

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Sewer

FICO BUSINESS RULES OVERVIEW

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AP

PLIC

ATIO

N

Preliminary

Servicing Advice

Trade Waste

requirement

Sewer

Requirements

Plans of Subdivision Recycled Water

Requirements

Number of

proposed properties

Water / Recycled

Water tapping sizes

Pressure and Flow

information

Plans outlining

proposed structures

Timing: Infill and

Greenfields

RE

QU

IRE

ME

NTS

AND /

OR

RE

SP

ON

SE

Conditions of

Connection Response Products

Town Planning and

Certification

17545

Victoria Building Authority

Number (PIC number)

Mandated

Recycled

Water Zone

Backflow

Pressure

Limiting

Valves

Water

Infrastructure

New

Customer

Contributions

Shutoff

Block

Fire

Service

Water

Sewer

Infrastructure

Manhole

Required

Combined

Drain

Trade

Waste

Build Over

Easement Overflow

Relief Cap

New Customer

Contributions

Inline

Booster

Pump

SY

STE

M

GIS ASSET PROPERTY BILLING

SINGLE PROPERTY APPLICATION – EXAMPLE

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Identify Property:

• Address

• Lot / Plan Number

• YVW Property ID

• Search via Map

(BING) • Easting / Northing

• Lat / Long

• Melways

SINGLE PROPERTY APPLICATION – STEP 2

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Address Match returned

Automatically identified the

Services

Where applicable, will

provide property information.

To continue application,

select “choose property”

SINGLE PROPERTY APPLICATION – SELECT TYPE

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The system automatically

provides only applicable

application types associated

to the available property

information.

Displays Lot / Asset

information within BING

For this workflow example,

we’ll select a Build Over

Easement application type

- Eg. Owner wants to

install a tennis court in

their backyard.

SINGLE PROPERTY APPLICATION – BUILD OVER EASEMENT

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From the build over application,

the system asks the user what

type of structure are they

requesting build over approval

for: Eg. Tennis Court

SINGLE PROPERTY APPLICATION – DOC. UPLOAD

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Some cases may require to user to

upload supporting documentation,

such as site plans.

SINGLE PROPERTY APPLICATION – COSTS

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Based upon the type of application, the system

outlines the application costs.

SINGLE PROPERTY APPLICATION – PAYMENT

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Once the payment has been

submitted, the system will attempt to

complete the application, or create a

business referral for follow-up.

Business referrals can relate to:

- Capacity of asset Eg.

Development > than 19 lots

- Combined Drain or Dead End

mains

These cases require a business user

to investigate, or the information isn’t

available within the system.

SINGLE PROPERTY APPLICATION – PROCESSING

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Where required, the system calls

the FICO business rules which

defines the required information,

and then automatically performs

spatial calculations base upon

these requirements.

Examples:

• Does the property require a

short tapping (<3 meters) or a

Long Tapping (> 3 meters)?

• Does an easement exist on

the property being developed?

GIS AUTOMATION

• When the address is known, it calls a GIS Web Service (GT Loca) to identify: • The property boundary associated to the address.

• All Sewer, Water, Non Drinking Water Assets within 5 meters of the property boundary

• Associated asset details, such as pipe material, size of pipe, depth of pipe

• The property boundary is also accessed as to whether other relevant boundary information

restrictions apply. • Eg. Mandated Recycled Water Area or Sewer Backlog Area

– These require encumbrances to be added to the property information statement within the

application

This type information is used throughout the FICO business process flow

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DATA IS CRITICAL

• GIS Automation is only as successful as the data which is being interrogated.

• Upon Go-Live we had a number of safety barriers (referral) in place within the Business

Rules. Since going live we’ve removed some of these barriers (and added others)…

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SINGLE PROPERTY APPLICATION – OUTPUT

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System produces

output letter outlining

terms and conditions

for the application,

as well as supporting

plans.

The plans highlight

conditions against

sewer/water assets.

Over 75% of

applications are now

fully automated!

Turn-around times

can be less than 5

minutes

EXAMPLE OLD VS NEW SEWER ASSET PLOTS

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BEFORE – MANUALLY CREATED AFTER - AUTOMATED

SUMMARY

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easyACCESS has delivered:

• Improved Customer Service • Enabling Self – Service

• Faster turn-around times

• A business rules engine • Consistent business rules are applied.

• Easier for ongoing management, adaptable.

• Provides full auditing capabilities

• Can be utilised by other Water Companies

• Enable staff to perform more value add tasks • Eg. QA checks, system improvements

GIS Automation has delivered:

• Automated spatial analysis

• Greatly reduced manual plan creation • Additional Plan Sales

Return on investment!

ANY QUESTIONS?