Read Philly permits, violations, gun requests at new site
L&I maps builders and violations at www.phila.gov/LI
Read Philly permits, violations, gun requests at new site
Joseph N. DiStefano
The Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections and the city IT office today went live with a rebuilt Web site at www.phila.gov/LI .
This is already public information, but it's cool to have it all in one place, searchable, linked, mapped, and generally user-friendly. Among the data you can track, citywide and for your neighborhood: - Licensed building contractors
- Licensed rental properties, and violations for renting without a license
- Property maintenance, improper construction and business, and fire code permit violations and appeals
- Zoning and use permits; zoning, L&I Review, and Board of Building Standards hearing schedules
- Construction permits (all kinds) for the past year
- Gun appeals by people who want their permits to carry back
Most of the data is shown for the past year (gun permits for the past two years).
There are also maps of permits and violations and rentals, and past-occurrence histories, and more to come, L&I commissioner Carlton Williams told us at a demo in the Municipal Services Building. "It's a significant milestone," with more data to come, says city chief innovation officer Adel Ebeid in a statement.
L&I plans to link the new site to the Business Service Portal to make it a little less onerous to get and keep permission to do business in the city.
Why put gun permit information on the web? The next time a hoodlum wants to steal a gun, all he has to do is look up the applicants and pick one to burglarize.— DonQ- There are hundreds of thousands of gun owners in the city. It doesn't take much to mine that armory depot. Poor gun nuts, always so negative.— Fernando08
- L&I is violating state law by making any LTFC information public. Why does Philly think they can continue to violate laws? They are not above the law, no one is.— Taxpaying Voter
- If I was a criminal in Philadelphia, the last people I would want to confront is a gun owner. That's just ridiculous. At least it's transparency in government records. Now, if we coud just get the DRPA, PPA, BAA, etc., to disclose all their data, meetings, expeditutres, ect., then it would make it more difficult to steal. It would not stop the rampant fraud but it would make me think twice. Kudos for taking steps to make public access to records easier for everyone.— SocialReject
