Digitalization of Processes from Building Permit Issuing to Property Ownership: Current Situation Analysis and Proposal

Because of the rapid population growth, to meet the demand in the living spaces, many new buildings are being constructed and existing buildings are being renewed. Getting a building permit is mandatory for these updates that occur in the land parcels. Nowadays, the building permit processes are manually carried out by using two dimensional (2D) project files and paper outputs in general. On the other hand, the national cadastral database should be updated with respect to land-use conversions due to the property ownership notion that arises out of the completion of construction. Currently, there are problems related to this issue because property rights and their components cannot be accurately represented by using 2D graphics. In this context, this paper aims to propose a framework that benefits from data models formatted by using Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) techniques in order to improve the building permit procedures in Turkey. The evaluation with regard to the use of digital data in building permit processes is carried out by examining the websites of municipalities in Istanbul, Turkey. The results show that building permit processes are not at the expected level with regards to electronic submission and the use of three dimensional (3D) digital building models. However, there is an important potential for achieving digital building permit procedures in terms of private and public sectors. In this direction, the findings that could be used for forward planning and strategies in Turkey are presented.