City of Gainesville and University of Florida develop artificial intelligence tool to speed building design and development
Press release from City of Gainesville
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The City of Gainesville is partnering with the University of Florida to expedite the design and development of construction projects through the use of artificial intelligence (AI). It’s a technological advance that is changing the industry landscape, saving time and money while providing more accurate, comprehensive, and potentially life-saving reports on upcoming construction projects.
To receive approval for any proposed development, developers have to follow local ordinances that are specific to each municipality. Understandably, this can complicate design plans. It’s necessary to know the rules, pay attention to the details, and conduct a substantial amount of research before a project meets the standards of any given community.
Currently, the job of reviewing all of those submitted plans is the work of plan reviewers in municipal offices. They do the job of checking to confirm plans comply with local codes, ordinances, and state regulations. This review process takes time. Larger projects can move quite slowly.
Back in 2017, Gainesville had a newly adopted digital permitting system and was looking for ways to increase efficiency in the building permit and review process. This led to sponsoring a research grant at UF that was aimed at finding ways to use AI to improve the plan review process. The building department worked with the UF team consistently for three years regarding code compliance methodology, and the work was then expanded into planning reviews.
“I think in any industry that you’re in, you have to look for innovation and you have to be able to capture the resources around you,” said John Freeland, City of Gainesville Building Official. “And in our community, we’re so fortunate to have the University of Florida here in our town.”
Through this partnership with the City of Gainesville, Dr. Nawari Nawari of UF’s College of Design, Construction and Planning, along with co-founder Rob Christy, established a software development company called AutoReview.ai. AutoReview’s technologies perform rapid, uniform, comprehensive, and consistent code reviews using a combination of the real and virtual worlds. Once a file is uploaded to the web portal, the code compliance review software will deliver its municipal compliance results within 24-48 hours.
“Advances in technology and AI in the built and natural environment continue to evolve,” said Seth Watts, Director of Advancement, College of Design, Construction & Planning at the University of Florida. “The ability for companies like AutoReview.ai to be an industry leader in advancing our industry and profession is exciting for the future.”
Gainesville’s planning staff played an integral role in the development of the software, guiding the software developers in supporting the needs of the reviewers while recognizing code compliance.
Now, AI review processes are being adopted by other municipalities across the country, and Gainesville’s planners are proud of their contributions to this new, exciting technology.
It’s a new computer program based on algorithms, not artificial intelligence. There is no such thing as artificial intelligence
Did the city if Gainesville just pay its Building Department to make itself obsolete in the future? Naw, they’ll just give everyone a 3 day work week while the algorithm plays. The future is here. Now we just need to build some robocops.
Sounds interesting… but not enough information given to excite the taxpayers.
Is AutoReview.ai proprietary software code that only works with uploaded files specific to Alachua County, or is this open-source code that can be customized for any local?
If it’s proprietary, who holds the licensing rights?
If open-source, where can I get a copy of the code?
municipal compliance results within 24-48 hours is probably less labor intensive than doing it manually but that seems slow for AI. Is 24-48 hours dependent on computer architecture?
I would like to know more about this.
So, why isn’t 10 feet an acceptable height for the first floor anywhere in Gainesville? Huge difference between life safety and aesthetics. In the realm of aesthetics, the standard should based on the appearance from the outside and I’m not sure how / why 10 feet wouldn’t be acceptable. Seems like another case of excessive Government overreach and a driver of significantly higher development cost.
More of our tax $ spent poorly.
Using the City of Gainesville as having or creating any kind of intelligence is a paradox in itself.
The two have little to no relationship with one another…despite what they’ve been telling us.
We saw how well the ‘self driving car’ worked….now you want to construct buildings with it? lolol.
The city of gainesville knows nothing of speed.
The city building department needs to focus on all aspects of customer service not chasing a new program to slow things down even more.
The city building department has the worst customer service of any business in Gainesville and permits can take up to 8 months for building a residential house.
They hide behind computers and have excuses every step of the way of why it takes so long.
Only the people who are buddy’s with the higher ups get customer service and expedited permit services. We need to clean house and start with a new building official.
Sorry, but that’s BS. If it took you 8 months to get a permit you submitted some real crap. I’d say average time for permits in my experience with the city is 2-4 weeks, depending on variables.
Yes, I met John Freeland 15 years ago when he was with the county, have seen him once since , and we are not buddies. I don’t know who any of the other people there are other than Judy the inspector, who is a saint. I have pulled multiple permits in Marion county – it’s been about 5 years since the last – and they are much more bureaucratic and rigid than Gainesville or Alachua County. Same for Lake County where I built a very nice house about 6 years ago.
As someone who has and still does submit plans to the City, County, and other building departments in Florida, plans analysts are typically very experienced in building and the Florida – and localities’ exceptions – code, and Gainesville had two of the best in my experience a decade ago. I don’t know personally the current city inspectors, but in my interactions seem more than competent. Alachua County has an excellent one as well, (the previous one died of an unexpected heart attack a number of years ago). That being said, I hear there is a shortage of qualified analysts and inspectors, as there in almost all areas of building these days and spots stay vacant for extended periods. Given the shortages, passing some of the work to AI may be a good idea and one assumes that human checking would be part of the process, at least at this point. Compared to other parts of the country, and maybe within the state, we get fairly fast processing of permits, and that is with one of the most demanding building codes in the nation. Our local building departments strive to work with builders and owners to be helpful and John Freeland is an excellent example of that attitude.