Online building permit procedures in the Netherlands: a European perspective

Electronic customer related services of governments have expanded enormously. In many regulatory domains the use of ICT services has become common property. This applies also to the field of building regulations. This paper focuses on Information Communication Technology applications for processing building permits. The paper presents the initial results from an ongoing research project which will be continued in the future. The main theme of the paper is the state of the art in the Netherlands with regard to online facilities for applying for a building permit. It will address government policy towards online public services in general and towards the electronic handling of building permit applications in particular. Further, the Dutch situation and progress will be compared with those in other European countries. We trace the main trends of eEurope policy with regard to the online availability of public services and analyze the progress European countries have made with the availability of online application facilities for building permission.