photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Lawrence City Hall

A new online portal is expected to make it easier for Lawrence residents to view information about planning and development in the community.

The City of Lawrence on Wednesday announced the launch of Citizen Connect, an online portal that allows community members to view locations of permits, planning applications, code compliance cases and licenses that the city has processed within Lawrence and Douglas County.

The portal replaces a previous system that included several different individual maps and reports that the city provided in various places. The new system makes all of the information available in one place.

“This new tool streamlines and simplifies the process for community members to find current and accurate information on what is happening in their community,” Jeff Crick, director of Planning & Development Services, said in the city’s news release.

In the new app, the map of Lawrence/Douglas County shows pins to represent the locations of permits, planning applications, code compliance cases and licenses. The pins can be filtered for the specific use, date ranges and application types. The map can also be focused on specific locations to view only the records at that location. Users can download full or filtered data sets and do their own analysis of items that are of interest to them.

Additionally, community members can use Citizen Connect to create alert areas around areas of interest, such as their neighborhood. After making a free account in the system, users can sign up for daily, weekly or monthly emails with notification of any activity that occurs within the alert area. Users can make as many alert areas as they want.