Supporting Building Safety Programs in Your Community

The safety of where we work, live, and gather affects all of us — and that’s why local government professionals need to do everything they can to promote and support building safety programs in their communities.

To kick off our series of articles for Building Safety Month, we’ve looked at how building safety impacts our daily lives, citing statistics that found proactive spending on mitigation efforts that help buildings get through fires, hurricanes, and other natural disasters saves money and lives in the long run.

Still, how can municipal staff support and encourage programs to actually improve building safety beyond following minimum codes? As we mark Building Safety Month’s Week 2 theme, “Build Your Offense,” let’s explore ways that everyone — building officials, city staff, and residents — can play a role in this important effort.

Why Building Safety Needs a Comprehensive Local Plan

Building safety isn’t some passive thing that just happens. Ensuring that all structures in your community are stable and prepared for whatever might happen requires a comprehensive plan backed up with teamwork and citizen engagement.

Rather than waiting until after a disaster to realize how vital it is to invest in safety and mitigation, local officials need to work together to develop clear policies and push public awareness initiatives to get the word out.

Inspectors, planners, building officials, and municipal leadership should work across departments toward the common goal of saving lives and preventing the loss of homes and structures when disaster strikes.

The days of departments functioning as completely separate silos of community development are long gone. To meet today’s challenges and a growing threat from storms, earthquakes, and fires, cities need to break down barriers and collaborate as one unified force.

More than ever, local governments can rely on modern tools to foster teamwork among staff and departments while improving communication and information sharing. The right online community development software, like Cloudpermit, can speed up permitting and inspections while ensuring everyone works together toward compliance.

How to Help Residents Do Their Part

Building safety is everyone’s work, including your residents and your community's next generation. According to a 2023 survey, residents who know how to prepare for disasters are much more likely to act and get ready, pointing to the worthiness of these awareness efforts.

Local officials can empower citizens to support this critical effort by encouraging them to report unsafe conditions, ask questions about construction or inspections, and advocate for safe building practices.

Social media platforms have made it easier than ever to get the word out to citizens and help them weigh in on local matters, including the rules and processes that keep them safe.

It’s also important for residents to stay up to date with what’s going on in their communities. Online tools like Cloudpermit can simplify the process of learning about community-related development with features like our Public Search Map and automatically generated public notice radius lists.

Even kids and teens can get involved as well by participating in local events, such as poster contests or building safety education days at schools. Fire or tornado drills can save lives, so they should be encouraged as often as possible.

Prioritize Building Safety in Your Community Development Processes

It’s time to prioritize building safety, but how can local government professionals best do this in an era of heavy service demand while dealing with slim staff and budget crunches?

One of the wisest investments is modern software that can streamline the delivery of services while also improving the accuracy of data and information that helps enforcement officers, building officials, and planners do their work and make impactful decisions.

Cloudpermit’s online software for local governments can help you be prepared by:

• Enabling mobile and in-the-field access to the latest real-time property information, all integrated with your local GIS.
• Switching to a digital workflow that makes permitting and inspections faster and allows for more thorough reviews.
• Empowering mobile inspections in the field, even in remote areas or without internet access.
• Automating public notifications and construction project updates.
• Integrating with the ICC Code Connect API to give staff instant access to your municipality’s adopted building codes.
• Boosting transparency with a digital platform that quickly disseminates information and helps build trust between officials and residents.

Adopting a technological solution specifically designed to help small- and mid-sized local governments provide services and ensure safety in their communities has many advantages.

This Building Safety Month, take the next step by coming up with a comprehensive building safety plan and ensuring you have the right technology and online tools to support it all throughout the year.