Abstract
An application, implemented by a computer that compiles real property addresses and then determines which municipality or special district has jurisdiction over a particular real property address for the adoption, governing, control, and enforcement of the adopted building codes and issuance of building permits, and provides the said building codes and authority to issue permits from a proprietary national Master Database, where the building codes are stored once collected, that is monitored to ensure that any changes or new adoptions of building code or building permit authority are updated. This system will provide the end user with instant, accurate information regarding the applicable building codes that have been adopted at a particular real property address including whether the address is regulated by a special district, such as a coastal commission or an Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction
Claims
1. A computer-implemented method to automatically identify any and all municipal jurisdictions containing real property and determine which of those previously identified jurisdictions has the authority to enforce adopted building codes and issue building permits comprising the steps of: (a) importing geographical information system spatial data into a Geospatial Database comprising municipal jurisdictional boundaries; (b) importing data related to building codes and the authority to issue building permits for jurisdictions from all municipal governments within the United States into a Master Database; (c) correlating said jurisdictions from the Geospatial Database with said building codes and said authorities to issue building permits from the Master Database; (d) retrieving data comprising building codes and authority to issue building permits for one or more jurisdictions from the Master Database; and (e) creating an output comprising a report and API.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein said municipal jurisdictions within the Geospatial Database comprise state jurisdictions, county jurisdictions, county subdivision jurisdictions, city or place jurisdictions, special district jurisdictions, and extra-territorial jurisdictions.
3. The method of claim 1 further comprising the steps of compiling building code information and the municipal authority to issue building permits for each of said jurisdictions within the Master Database, where: (a) each municipality within the 50 United States and Washington, D.C. are contacted and researched; (b) all data gathered from each municipality is collected and stored within the Master Database; (c) each municipality within the Master Database is determined to either: i. have the authority to issue building permits and enforce building codes within its jurisdictional boundaries; ii. defer to another municipality to issue building permits and enforce building codes within its jurisdictional boundaries; iii. elect to have no building codes and thus not issue building permits within its jurisdictional boundaries; or iv. some combination of the above possibilities (d) each municipality within the Master Database that has adopted building codes has a historical record of past building codes, current building codes, and future building codes; (e) each municipality has a unique geographic identifier.
4. The method of claim 1 in which a user input property address is geocoded into a coordinate pair and plotted by way of a point-in-polygon algorithm that determines which polygon(s) or multipolygon(s) contain said point, where: (a) a polygon is defined as a plane two-dimensional figure that is described by a finite number of straight-line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain; (b) a multipolygon is defined as a collection of polygons that do not intersect; (c) a coordinate pair is a pair of numeric values representing a given point's latitude and longitude values; (d) the segments of a polygonal circuit or multipolygon are called its edges or sides and the points where the two edges meet are the polygon's vertices, where; (e) each polygon or multipolygon may be contained within another polygon or multipolygon, where; (f) the points lying on the edges of a polygon or multipolygon are considered to be inside the polygon or multipolygons.
5. The method of claim 4 where the collection of polygons and multipolygons that contain the coordinate pair are determined utilizing the Geospatial Database, where; (a) each polygon or multipolygon is representative of a state, county, township, city, special region, or extra territorial jurisdiction where; (b) each polygon or multipolygon contains metadata that includes a unique geographic identifier.
6. The method of claim 5 correlates the collection of polygons or multipolygons representative of municipal jurisdictions from the Geospatial Database to the Master Database by way of the unique geographic identifier contained in the metadata of each polygon or multipolygon, where; (a) the Master Database utilizes logic to run queries that identifies which of the said municipal jurisdictions have or do not have building codes or the authority to issue building permits; (b) determining, based on a municipality's legal government status and its municipal deference per claim 4, which of the municipal jurisdictions that contain said property, has ultimate authority over the adoption and enforcement of building codes and the authority to issue building permits.
7. The method of claims 4, 5, and 6 in which the municipal jurisdiction having authority to adopt and enforce building codes for said property is determined and that municipality's building codes are displayed.
Description
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0022] FIG. 1A is a screenshot of a map displaying neighboring municipal boundaries and two separate properties, Property A and Property B.
[0023] FIG. 1B is a screenshot comparing reports for Property A and Property B from FIG. 1A generated by the invention.
[0024] FIG. 2A is a screenshot of a map displaying neighboring municipal boundaries and two separate properties, Property A and Property B.
[0025] FIG. 2B is a screenshot comparing reports for Property A and Property B from FIG. 2A generated by the invention.
[0026] FIG. 3A is a screenshot of a map displaying the legal municipal boundaries of a city as well as the Extra-Territorial Jurisdictional (ETJ) boundaries of the city and two separate properties, Property A and Property B.
[0027] FIG. 3B is a screenshot comparing reports for Property A and Property B from FIG. 3A generated by the invention.
[0028] FIG. 4A is a screenshot of a map displaying the municipal boundary of a city that resides in two different counties and two separate properties, Property A and Property B.
[0029] FIG. 4B is a screenshot comparing reports for Property A and Property B from FIG. 4A generated by the invention.
[0030] FIG. 5A is a screenshot of a map displaying residential properties, represented as points, within county boundaries drawn with a black line.
[0031] FIG. 5B is a screenshot of the map from FIG. 5A that includes the addition of county subdivision boundaries drawn with a black line.
[0032] FIG. 5C is a screenshot of the map from FIG. 5B that includes the addition of city boundaries drawn with a black line.
[0033] FIG. 5D is a screenshot of the map from FIG. 5C that includes the addition of Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction boundaries and special district boundaries drawn with a black line.
[0034] FIG. 6 is a view of the types of structured data within the database.
[0035] FIG. 7 is a broad overview of the steps taken to determine jurisdiction having authority and combine that with a master database of building codes in order to create a report output.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0036] Referring to FIG. 1A, Property A has a U.S. Postal Service address of “10694 E Powers Dr, Englewood, Colo. 80111”. The assigned city for this property is “Englewood” when the property itself is located in unincorporated Arapahoe County. Property B has a U.S. Postal Service address of “4201 S Cherokee St, Englewood, Colo. 80110” and is actually located within the City of Englewood, Colo. The present invention is able to discern that although the U.S. Postal Service for Property A shows Englewood, Colo. it is in fact in unincorporated Arapahoe County.
[0037] Referring to FIG. 1B, a screenshot of the output of the present invention showing the differences in building codes between Property B in Englewood, Colo. and Property A in unincorporated Arapahoe County even though the U.S. Postal Service address for each property shows Englewood, Colo.
[0038] Referring to FIG. 2A, Property A has a U.S. Postal Service address of “2035 Wilson Ridge Ln, Chesterfield, Mo. 63005”. Property B has a U.S. Postal Service address of “2106 Wilson Ridge Ln, Chesterfield, Mo. 63005”. Property A is within the city of Chesterfield, while Property B, just a few houses down from Property A and on the same street, is within the city of Clarkson Valley, even though the assigned city by the U.S. Postal Service for Property B is Chesterfield. The present invention is able to discern that although the U.S. Postal Service addresses for Property A and Property B show “Chesterfield”, the jurisdiction having building code authority for Property B is the City of Clarkson Valley while the jurisdiction having building code authority for Property A is St. Louis County.
[0039] Referring to FIG. 2B, a screen shot of the present inventions output showing the differences in building codes between St. Louis County (the municipality having building code jurisdiction over Property A) and the City of Clarkson Valley (the municipality having building code jurisdiction over Property B).
[0040] Referring to FIG. 3A, Property A has a U.S. Postal Service address of “5321 Gooding Dr, Austin, Tex. 78744”. Property A is outside the legal municipal boundaries of Austin, Tex. and within unincorporated Travis County. However, Property A is within the Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction of Austin, Tex. and thus under their building code jurisdiction. Property B has a U.S. Postal Service address of “370 Tiffany Trail, Austin, Tex. 78719”. Property B is outside the legal municipal boundaries of Austin, Tex. and within unincorporated Travis County and just outside the Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction of Austin, Tex. Property B is under the building code jurisdiction of Travis County.
[0041] Referring to FIG. 3B, a screen shot of the present inventions output showing the differences in building codes between the City of Austin (the municipality having building code jurisdiction over Property A) and the Travis County (the municipality having building code jurisdiction over Property B).
[0042] Referring to FIG. 4A, Property A has a U.S. Postal Service address of “11833 Ulenwood Dr, Midland, N.C. 28107”. Although the assigned city by the US Post Office for Property A is Midland, Property A is actually within the City of Locust, N.C. Property B has a U.S. Postal Service address of “543 Browns Hill Rd, Locust N.C. 28097”. The City of Locust, NC defers their building code authority to the county level. As displayed on the map in FIG. 4A, the City of Locust is within two different counties, Cabarrus County and Stanly County. The authority having jurisdiction over the building code is thus dependent on what county a property resides. Property A, being in Cabarrus County, is under their jurisdiction, while Property B, being in Stanly County is under its jurisdiction. The present invention is able to discern which county each property is in as well as determine that the City of Locust defers their building code authority to the county level.
[0043] Referring to FIG. 5A, various points, representing residential properties, are displayed on a map within county boundaries drawn with a black line. This simplistic view shows which county could potentially have jurisdiction over various properties based on the physical location of a represented property being within the boundaries of a given county.
[0044] Referring to FIG. 5B, the same points and county boundaries from FIG. 5A are shown, with the additional, boundaries of county subdivisions drawn in red. This additional view shows how the various properties could be within the jurisdiction of a given county as well as within a given county subdivision.
[0045] Referring to FIG. 5C, the same points, county boundaries and county subdivision boundaries from FIG. 5B are shown, with the additional boundaries of cities drawn in yellow. This additional view shows how the various properties could be within the jurisdiction of a given county, a given county subdivision, as well as within a given city.
[0046] Referring to FIG. 5D, the same points, county boundaries, county subdivision boundaries, and city boundaries from FIG. 5C are shown, with the additional boundaries of Extra-Territorial Jurisdictions and special districts drawn in green. This additional view shows how the various properties could be within the jurisdiction of a given county, a given county subdivision, a given city, as well as within a given Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction or special district.
[0047] FIG. 6 provides detail around the types of data, geospatial, non-geospatial, and the logic used in the invention. Geospatial data connects a property's geographical location with the various municipal jurisdictions that contain the property. The non-geospatial data provides contextual data related to the various municipal jurisdictions that might contain the property. The logic handles the hierarchy of the various municipal jurisdictions. The hierarchy involves the common situation in which multiple jurisdictions contain property and deciphering which of those jurisdictions has the final building code and building permit authority.
[0048] FIG. 7 shows an overview of the steps taken to determine jurisdictional authority for a specific address and retrieve and display the applicable building code authority and the enforced building codes. In Step 1 a specific property address is input. Step 2 utilizes the geospatial database and determines all the jurisdictions that contain the specific property address from Step 1, exemplified through FIG. 5A, FIG. 5B, FIG. 5C and FIG. 5D. Once all the appropriate jurisdictions are determined, Step 3 queries each of those jurisdictions against the Municipal Authority and Building Code Database to determine, through hierarchical logic, which of the jurisdictions detected in FIG. 5A, FIG. 5B, FIG. 5C and FIG. 5D have the authority over the specific property input from Step 1 to issue building permits and what the building codes are for that specific authority.
