And they told me it couldn't be done...

A couple of years ago a resident in my neighborhood came to me for help. A neighbor of his had built a garage addition. Not just a garage but a multi-car garage topped with a party deck. It pretty much occupies the property's entire back yard. I wasn't making any judgements about the addition, but suffice to say I'm glad it wasn't backing up against my kitchen window! The neighbor wasn't asking for the additon to be torn down, he just felt the process had some holes in it and thought it could be changed for the better. The current process goes something like this. If you want to build an addition or outbuilding that violates zoning laws, you have to obtain what's called a variance. That means you have obtained permission from the City for your specific project. First you have to develop your plans and submit them to the City Planning Department where they make suggestions and possibly request revisions. Once they have approved it, all your surrounding neighbors are notified of your intent and are given a chance to review your plans and protest them if they want before the Board of Zoning and Adjustment (BZA). If nobody shows up to the BZA hearing to complain, the project is generally approved. It's the part about the opportunity to review plans that my neighbor had the problem with. If you've never received one of these notifications it's usually a scale map of the property with an outline of the proposed project. No pictorials. Nothing very descriptive. In this particular case it described the project as a "garage addition." You're also told the entire project plans are available for your review at City Hall during business hours (maybe). I'm not kidding about the "maybe" part. My neighbor felt that if he had seen the entire project plans he would have surely gone to the BZA hearing to express his concerns. He didn't feel like he should have to take a day off of work to go to City Hall for a "maybe". I agree. I was able to get a meeting with my City Councilman who invited the acting head of City Planning. I wanted to know why the plans couldn't be made available online. In this day and age almost all architectural plans and renderings either start or end up in electronic format. I didn't feel it would be too much of a stretch to send out a URL in the neighbor notification letters that would allow people to go to a website and review the plans at their leisure. The city staff at the meeting listened. They nodded agreement, but in the end it was one of those "maybe someday" type answers implying that it would be too difficult to implement and the technology didn't yet exist. I knew better but I was just a lowly constituent. Well guess what? According to the press release I received last week and borrowing a phrase from The Six Million Dollar Man, "we have the technology." Courtesy of the City and the Builders' Association, the Kansas City Plan room will launch October 1st. The Web site (kcmoplanroom.org) will allow contractors to download and print construction plans and bidding documents for free. So now we have the capability, we have the technology, how about making BZA plans available on this site too?