The town is on the fast-track to draw new business after the launch of a Web site that lets residents, property owners and contractors apply for building permits online, according to town officials.
"It shows the town's willingness to move forward and make the town attractive to potential developers that may want to come" here, said Building Inspector Jack Mee.
It's part of a larger effort to encourage economic growth that began last year with the adoption, at Spring Town Meeting, of Chapter 43D to expedite permitting, Mee said.
Under Chapter 43D economic development program, towns are given grants to identify priority development sites - properties ripe for expansion. At the same time, the town agrees to make permitting decisions within 180 days.
According to Town Planner Don Johnson - speaking when the town adopted the program last March - the idea behind it was to streamline permitting to encourage the type of growth a town wants, in the area where the town wants it.
Walpole received $150,000 under the state incentive program. After hiring a consultant to identify priority sites, the town hired one to establish expedited permitting regulations for those sites; it also paid a consultant to set up an online permitting process.
On Sept. 2, the town introduced a new online resource - funded by the grant money - accessible from the Town Hall's Web page at www.walpole-ma.gov. It was the first in the immediate vicinity to do so.
A variety of electrical, plumbing and gas permits may now be filed online using the Geographic Tracking Municipal Solutions software.
Many of these building, electrical and mechanical permits are typically treated as formalities by the building department, Mee said. Permits currently available online include the necessary applications to install a sewer connection, electrical outlets for a commercial structure, or replace a gas stove.
One result of the Web site, Mee predicted, will be lessened traffic in the Building Department and fewer time-consuming administrative duties.
In conjunction with the online permitting process, the town spent around $60,000 of the state grant to tie the various town departments - planning, conservation, zoning and health, for example - together throughout the development process.
"We're basically building our own archive," Mee said.
This archive will include any permit application, board decision, or order of conditions associated with a particular property, he said. Before he heads out to a property to perform an inspection, he can pull up the property and check, for example, "if there's anything outstanding that would prevent (a property) from passing." At the end of an inspection he will log his results into the program.
Eventually, abutters will be able to view read-only copies of this information, Mee said.
Like the public-access Web site for permit applications, this online program uses the Geographic Tracking Municipal Solutions.
It "allows our departments to communicate better and serve our growing community," Town Administrator Michael Boynton said.
"We were searching for a solution that could help automate the permit and inspection process while allowing multiple departments to participate in the review process," he added.
Many towns make permit applications available online for downloading and printing, including Dedham, Norwood and Westwood.
But Walpole is one of the few making the whole process, including permit application submission, accessible remotely, Mee said.
