MHUG ConferenceNew Jersey’s Department of Community Affairs (DCA) is changing how municipalities approach housing inspections. In a bid to extend online capabilities and make it easier for property owners to take care of their duties, the DCA is mandating online access to municipal services. Software solutions like FastTrackGov® facilitate compliance for communities nationwide. Read on to learn more about the DCA mandate and how your community can comply easily.
New Jersey Housing Inspections Move Online
The state of New Jersey is leveraging digital technology to make housing inspections easier to manage for property owners and municipalities. Under a new DCA mandate, municipalities need to allow property owners to request and schedule periodic inspections through online portals.
The mandate covers hotels and multiple-family dwellings containing three or more units. That means it also applies to condominiums, cooperatives, and mutual housing corporations. Each of these buildings needs to be inspected every five years.
The goal is to check that accommodation is maintained properly with the health and safety of tenants and the general community in mind. The provisions are part of the New Jersey Uniform Fire Code. For many building owners, the inspections are simply a formality.
However, getting around to requesting an inspection of a new building or scheduling a date for a recurring inspection can be tricky when municipality office opening hours are limited. Mandating online access to requests and scheduling not only eases access but also prevents owners from missing critical deadlines and potentially incurring penalties.
How Property Owners Benefit from Digital Access to Inspection Scheduling
Digital technology has transformed every aspect of our daily lives, both professionally and privately. Today, most people are used to ordering groceries and other goods online, as well as booking accommodations, or scheduling doctor’s appointments. Making municipal services available online is a logical extension of digital technology into communities.
Property owners benefit from digital access to inspection scheduling in several ways:
- Convenient scheduling
- Easy access to municipality employees
- Ability to set reminders
- Avoid missed inspections
1. Convenient Scheduling
Moving access to inspection requests and scheduling online allows property owners and managers to make requests at their convenience. There is no need to adhere to municipality opening hours or coordinate schedules to attend in-person appointments at the local government office.
Once appointments have been issued online, it is easier to synchronize calendars and ensure inspectors gain access to the property.
Should the inspector find problems that need to be rectified, online services allow all parties to access the relevant information, including deadlines and specific requests by the inspection team.
2. Easy Access to Municipality Employees
Reaching busy municipality employees during business hours can be difficult for property managers with a busy schedule. It becomes even trickier when someone looks after buildings in more than one municipality and needs to juggle appointments in multiple places.
Online services allow property managers to request inspections as well as ask questions to municipality employees. Building managers and owners can leave their queries at a time that suits them.
3. Ability to Set Reminders
Even the most conscientious property owner or manager may forget to request a recurring inspection. Online services allow owners to receive reminders from their municipality and avoid missing deadlines.
4. Avoid Missed Inspections
Missing housing inspections can not only result in fines for property owners. More importantly, if there are problems with properties, tenants may be at risk. Online services to help request and schedule inspections not only save property owners money, but they make it easier to keep people and buildings in top condition.
How Municipality Employees Benefit from Online Services
Local government employees benefit from providing online access to housing inspection requests just as much as property owners. Here are some of the advantages your municipality’s employees can look forward to:
- More productive use of office hours
- Secure data storage
- Convenient inspection reminders
- Easy access to comprehensive building information
1. More Efficient Productivity
No matter how much employees strive to deliver more, few things are more effective at increasing productivity than using software to move repetitive tasks online.
By making inspection scheduling online, municipalities allow their teams to spend their time completing complex tasks that require human input.
2. Secure Data Storage
With the right software product, sensitive data is kept safe and secure in one place, limiting the risk of data breaches or lost information significantly.
3. Convenient Inspection Reminders
Handling inspection requests online makes it easy for municipalities to minimize the number of missed inspections. Employees can automate reminders and send them to property owners, helping them stay up to date with their inspection schedule and keeping occupants safe.
4. Easy Access to Comprehensive Building Information
Building construction, inspection, and maintenance generally involve more than one municipality employee and span several departments. As papers and data are passed between individuals and departments, it is easy for information to get misplaced.
Keeping information in one central database limits risks. Plus, handling information online allows departments to share access and collaborate without important details getting lost.
Choosing the Right Software Package for Your Community
Choosing the right software package will be essential in meeting your community’s needs and complying with the New Jersey DCA mandate. Mitchell Humphrey & Co.’s FastTrackGov® (FTG) not only helps your municipality comply with those new regulations, but the software offers other benefits, too.
Flexible Software Solutions Trusted by Hundreds of Municipalities
We understand that communities of different sizes have different requirements, which is why flexibility is a large part of FTG. We work with you to customize our products to meet your needs.
Constantly Evolving
Another reason to opt for FTG is our commitment to constant development. We understand that state and federal law evolves rapidly, changing the environment in which municipalities operate.
We pride ourselves in monitoring these changes closely and adapting our solutions to ensure communities like yours never need to worry about compliance and operating within legal requirements. Just like your community, FTG is constantly evolving to help you grow.
What to Consider Before Implementing Online Services
Currently, digital transformation is no longer just an option for municipalities to ensure constant growth, but it is a must to allow communities to thrive. How your municipality chooses to go about this transformation can vary from location to location, though. There is no right or wrong way of moving municipal services online. In this section, we look more closely at your choices and considerations.
Implementing Digital Technology at Once or by Application
One of the first decisions municipality leaders need to make is whether to do one big digital transformation or choose to go step-by-step and implement one software application at a time.
There is no right or wrong answer. In most cases, what works best will depend on the community, your team of municipal employees, and other circumstances.
Our team is will learn more about your needs and develop a plan that suits your employees and leadership team.
Creating a Training Schedule for Municipality Employees
While using digital technology is becoming part of everyone’s daily lives, municipality leaders should not assume that employees are happy and ready to use software without additional support.
In reality, some team members may be reluctant or even fearful of a digital transformation, especially if they are of a generation that did not grow up surrounded by computers. We understand that a community’s digital transformation will only reach its full potential if every employee embraces it.
Ongoing Support
Our relationship with your municipality does not end with a successful implementation. We believe in building strong, long-lasting relationships with the communities using our software solutions.
We are more than a software supplier. As your technology partner, we effectively become an extension of your team. We are only ever a phone call or email away if you need additional support. When you are onboarding new team members, we are happy to offer training in familiarizing them with the technology they will be using.
Is Your Community Ready to Embrace Digital Technology?
As states like New Jersey are starting to mandate online access to critical municipality services, it is time for local governments to implement software solutions that deliver advantages for employees, residents, and local businesses. Saving time, increasing productivity, and improving access to municipal services are only three of the advantages of online services.
When it comes to online building inspection requests and scheduling, owners, administrators, and inspectors benefit from smoother processing when information is handled online. In addition, the risk of information getting lost or data being mishandled is significantly reduced.
To leverage the power of software successfully, municipalities need to choose a product that is tailored to their needs and both customizable and flexible enough to meet municipality needs for years to come. To learn more about FTG and find out how we can support your community, schedule a demo today.