Milestone for reducing bureaucracy: Offenbach issues first digital building permit
12.12.2024
More service, less bureaucracy: For the first time, Offenbach's building inspectorate has issued a digital building permit for a private construction project in a completely digital process. Paul-Gerhard Weiß, Head of Building and Planning, says: "A building application at the click of a mouse - that's now possible in Offenbach. Meters of paper and mountains of files are now a thing of the past." The digital process is still being tested in Offenbach.
Head of Building and Planning Paul-Gerhard WeißIn April 2025, we will flip the switch at the building inspectorate: no one will have to lug boxes of approval plans to the building inspectorate anymore. Anyone planning a building project in our city that requires approval will then be able to submit all the necessary applications digitally.
"Further processing and communication will then also be much more efficient and easier than before," announces Weiß, adding: "Anyone who wants to can still choose the previous analog process until further notice." At the same time, Weiß emphasizes: "The digital approval process is a huge step forward, not only for private individuals but also for companies. Offenbach is thus gaining further profile as a business and innovation-friendly location." The simultaneous digitization of the building archive will also make access to existing plans considerably easier and faster.
What makes things much easier for architectural firms and building owners initially involved immense preparations within the building inspectorate. "There are many hurdles to overcome in the digitalization of administration. I am therefore all the more pleased that we are now taking a huge step forward in Offenbach: With the introduction of digital building permits, we are reducing bureaucracy and improving the service for customers. I am proud of the small team at our building inspectorate, which has never lost sight of its goal despite the high workload and constant new challenges," says Weiß, alluding to the fact that building permits are one of the most extensive approval procedures in municipal administration. In order to be able to review and approve building applications, a large number of different documents and certificates - from construction plans to fire protection and parking spaces - have to be submitted. Numerous public bodies (including other authorities such as the environmental agency, building authority or monument protection authority as well as the fire department) must be involved in the approval process for the purpose of reviews and comments. The online procedure, which had to be set up using software and interfaces, is correspondingly complex.
Central construction portal of the state of Hesse
For the digital construction file, the city of Offenbach therefore joined the "Bauportal Hessen (DigiBauG)" project of the state of Hesse at a very early stage. The municipal service provider ekom21 took care of all the professional, organizational and technical challenges on behalf of the Hessian Ministry of Economics, Energy, Transport, Housing and Rural Areas and developed a central construction portal with all the necessary interfaces. If interested, all building supervisory authorities of the cities and districts in Hesse can join this construction portal. Offenbach was one of the pilot municipalities for the implementation - in the meantime, most of the building supervisory authorities have decided to participate. "Instead of isolated solutions, the digital building portal ensures uniform, up-to-date collaboration, coordination and task distribution with all parties involved. The portal is a user-friendly and data-secure end-to-end solution for submitting building applications digitally, participating online and making decisions electronically. Up-to-dateness, further development and the integration of new technologies are considered holistically at a central point. It also offers standardized data exchange - regardless of the software used in the individual building inspectorates," explains Simon Sauerbier, overall project manager at Ekom21.
As the initiator and driving force, the city of Frankfurt, like Offenbach, is also connected to the Hesse-wide portal. This enables developers and planning offices working in both cities to rely on a standardized and familiar process. With the Hesse building portal, the building application is submitted by those authorized to submit building documents via the central building application portal and can be sent to the participating building supervisory offices throughout Hesse. These access the centrally stored documents via their respective specialist procedures in order to process them internally and involve third parties. Communication during the procedure and, ultimately, the granting of planning permission are carried out via the Hesse Building Portal. One major advantage is that the execution of construction projects can also be tracked digitally until completion in future.
Architect Stephanie Wellnitz, a member of the BDA and 4th generation office owner, can report on the advantages of the new digital process from a customer perspective. She had agreed to take part in the Offenbach building inspectorate's test operation for a private construction project in Offenbach and has now received the city's very first digital building permit. "Our office, Wellnitz Architekten BDA, was delighted to be the first office to test the new building portal together with the Offenbach building inspectorate. Overall, we can say that the building portal is easy to understand and self-explanatory. It really saves resources because you save an enormous amount of time and paper. For us, the construction portal is easy to use. Collaboration and communication with the building inspectorate, especially the team of administrators, graduate engineer Silke Dewald and Markus Hänel, also went smoothly and quickly. We also have the impression that the response and processing times are significantly shorter and reduced compared to the conventional procedure. We are delighted to be starting the future here together with the City of Offenbach," says Wellnitz.
In order to establish the digital process in building supervision, Sonja Stuckmann's team has had to rethink all internal processes over the past 18 months: "The entire processing procedure - from submitting applications to approval - and communication with all offices and departments involved has changed, in some cases considerably. In addition to the technical integration and staff training, the internal organization of the office also had to be adapted," explains Stuckmann.
At the same time, the entire file archive of the building inspectorate has been digitized for some time: "This is also an ambitious project with which we have already come a long way and still have a lot to do. Our files date from the 19th century to the present day. The digitization of these more than 28,000 volumes of files plus numerous static folders and thus a total of almost 2,000 linear meters of files in a wide variety of paper qualities and formats requires close coordination with the scanning service provider as well as considerable internal preparatory and follow-up work on the files and digitized data. We have set up and implemented our own document management system. This also handles the data flow from the scanning service provider to us and from us to our customers, for example if they want to inspect files," explains Stuckmann. "All of this is a huge amount of detailed work, but our customers and we ourselves will benefit considerably from it in the long term. We are delighted with these successful steps and look forward to much easier collaboration for everyone involved in the future," says Stuckmann.
The test phase for the digital construction portal will be extended in January 2025 with further selected architectural firms and clients, announced Christian Bosche, deputy head of the office and project manager for the digitalization of the office: "We want to further optimize the processes and communication in the portal and with the other offices." According to current plans, the construction portal for all projects requiring approval in Offenbach will finally go live in April 2025: "From then on, all building applications can be submitted digitally," says Bosche. However, he is already thinking ahead: "As the next project after that, we would also like to digitize and implement the processing of permit-free and permit-exempt procedures."
