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Community Corner

How to Navigate to the Geneva Development Department's New Webpage

There are a lot of new bells and whistles to the Community Development pages of the city's website. Here are a few tips on how to get there.

If you want to know how to Google your pergola, well, read on.

The city of Geneva has updated the Building Division pages of its website, making it easier for you to access city permit forms and other important information you need at any time of the day or night.

For example, want to replace your furnace or air conditioner? You need a permit for that.

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You also need an inspection. And 24 hours to schedule an inspection. And $50 for the permit. 

And permits are required in 27 other categories, from patios to pergolas

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Now you can find those permits and the "how to" information at the touch of a button—if you know where to look.

At Monday night's City Council meeting, Community Development Director Dick Untch told the City Council that the website update provides a level of service that customers expect in this Information Age.

"It became clear we needed to provide more robust content and give people the information they need," he said. "It’s a matter of making the process as easy as possible, and as informative as possible."

City staff was handling the permit process most often via phone calls. That's a friendly way to do business, but it also takes a lot of staff time and sometimes caused problems, either from "selective hearing" by the permit-seeker or incomplete explanation from the city staffer.

Untch said it's just good practice to have the requirements spelled out online, where all can see it.

Untch provided a walk-through of the web pages Monday night. Here's some information on how to find what you're looking for.

For starters, here's a link to the Building Division page.

To get to the Building Division from the city of Geneva homepage, you need to take several steps:

  • Click on "City Departments" on the right.
  • Click on "Community Development" on the menu tree on the left.
  • Click on "Building and Zoning" in the menu tree.

Tip: You can click "Open All," located above the menu tree, to see all of the city departments and services.

The city's search option is a Google search. That means it will take you off the city's website, to the Google search engine, if you want to find something by a keyword. The search can help you find a specific form, for example, but it's a bit of a clunky way to get to where you want to go.

Also of note is that the permit forms are PDFs (Portable Document Format). As far as I could tell, you have to print those to fill them out. Then you have to fax the form, mail it or bring it to City Hall. There does not seem to be any option to fill out the form online.

The city is spending , which should make it possible, even easy, to access permit documents with fields you can fill out online. That software also will make it easy to pay city bills online.

Aldermen applauded Untch's efforts to get so much good-quality information on the city's website, proactively and prior to the New World overhaul. The Building Division page includes contact information for each staff member and has links to these four information categories: Permit Process SummaryApplication for PermitZoning Map and Tree Preservation.

Updates also were made to the Historic Preservation pages and to the Zoning Board of Appeals pages.

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