In accordance with the previous Detailed Submission Procedures notification that was distributed on January 3, 2006, the City of Columbus will be fully implementing various provisions of its Digital Submission Standards as of May 1, 2006.  On that date the various City approval processes referenced within this document shall commence to require the submission of digital information to supplement the existing paper submission requirements.  Failure to provide this digital information as prescribed herein shall result in the rejection of the associated application, and/or other actions as also described herein.

Copies of the City’s Digital Submission Standards and a .DWG submission template may be downloaded from:

 2008 Digital Submission Standards

PRELIMINARY AND FINAL PLAT SUBMISSIONS - As a part of their preliminary and final plat application packages, the applicant shall be responsible for providing an electronic file containing only the development boundary of their proposed project in .DWG format.  This file shall conform to the City’s adopted Digital Submission Standards and may be submitted on a Compact Disk (CD) at the time of application, or by Email in advance of their submission appointment.

If the applicant so elects to submit this information by Email, the submission shall be made to OneStopPlans@columbus.gov and must have been received by the City prior to the applicant’s plat submission appointment.  An electronic courtesy copy of this e-mail submission must also be concurrently sent to the City’s plat reviewer with whom the applicant is scheduled to meet. 

A failure to provide this digital information at the time of application will result in the plat reviewer’s refusal to accept said application.  An inaccurate, or non-compliant, digital submission shall require correction by the applicant before plat approval will be provided by the City or Columbus.

CERTIFIED ADDRESSING REQUESTS FOR FINAL PLATS - The applicant shall submit in .DWG format to the City’s Map Room all final plat features for the purpose of initiating the certified addressing application process. This submission shall include all final plat features in base map, as opposed to plan sheet format, and may be made concurrently with, or immediately following the submission of a final plat to the City of Columbus. The certified addressing submission may be submitted via e-mail to OneStopPlans@columbus.gov, or delivered directly to the Map Room on CD.  All .DWG features shall be prepared in conformance with the City’s Digital Submission Standards. 

Upon completing their preliminary review of this submission, the Map Room shall advise the applicant if this submission is determined non-compliant, incomplete, or inaccurate.  The certified addressing process shall not commence until a fully compliant submission has been received.        

Following City approval of the final plat, the Map Room shall confirm that all digital information previously submitted for addressing purposes is in agreement with the final plat as signed.  It shall be the applicant’s responsibility to provide corrections for any inconsistencies determined during the Map Room’s review.  The applicant shall then reimburse the City for its actual expense in making any associated address plat corrections.  Said payment shall, upon receipt of invoice, be made at the Building Development Services Division’s cashier’s station.  A failure to reimburse the City for these extraneous addressing expenses shall result in the City’s refusal to release certified addresses, and/or refusal to accept building permit applications, for the final plat area.

ALL ROUTED COMMERCIAL SITE PLANS - Prior to submitting commercial site plans that will be routed for citywide review, the applicant shall first obtain certified addressing for their project.   To obtain certified addressing the applicant shall submit in .DWG format to the City’s Map Room all commercial site plan features.  This submission shall include all site plan features in base map, as opposed to plan sheet format.  This submission may be sent via e-mail to OneStopPlans@columbus.gov or delivered directly to the Map Room on CD.  All .DWG format features shall be prepared in conformance with the City’s Digital Submission Standards.

Upon completing their preliminary review, the Map Room shall advise the applicant if this submission is determined non-compliant, incomplete, or inaccurate.  Following the submission of a fully compliant site plan the Map Room shall commence, complete, and subsequently release a Certified Address Plat for the area in question.  After the applicant has received certified addressing, they may then make application for commercial plan review and approval at the Building Services Division (BSD), 757 Carolyn Avenue. 

Following City approval of the commercial site plan, the Map Room shall confirm that all digital information previously submitted for addressing purposes is in agreement with the approved commercial site plan.  It shall be the applicant’s responsibility to provide corrections for any inconsistencies determined during the Map Room’s review.  The applicant shall then reimburse the City for its actual expense of making and associated address plat corrections.

Said payment shall, upon receipt of invoice, be made at the Building Services Division’s cashier’s station.  A failure to reimburse the City for these extraneous addressing costs shall result in the City’s refusal to accept future applications from the applicant for all development, construction, and/or zoning processes associated with this or any other site. 

DRAWER D AND E PLANS - The Transportation Division currently requires that both paper and digital copies (.tiff) of each Drawer D and E plan sheet be submitted concurrently with each plan review submission.  As of May 1, 2006, the applicant shall also be required to concurrently submit all final Drawer D and E plan features in .DWG format as a part of their final plan review submission.  This .DWG submission shall be made by separate CD and shall be in base map, as opposed to plan view, format.   

A failure to provide this digital information at the time of application will result in the Transportation Division’s refusal to accept said plan submissions for review.  All .DWG format features shall be prepared in conformance with the City’s adopted Digital Submission Standards.  Any .DWG submissions determined to be incomplete, inaccurate, or non-compliant shall require correction by the applicant before the Drawer D or E plan will be fully approved and/or signed by the City.

UTILITY PLANS - For all CC Plans, the Division of Sewerage and Drainage’s current digital submission requirements shall remain in effect.

REZONING, COUNCIL VARIANCE AND BZA VARIANCE APPLICATIONS - For all rezoning, Council variance, and BZA variance applications submitted to the Public Hearings Group at Carolyn Avenue, a digital submission of the project boundary shall be required whenever such projects are comprised of one or more parts of a complete property.  If, however, the rezoning or variance can be accurately described as being one or more complete county auditor’s parcels, a list of the associated parcel numbers will suffice.  If the rezoning or variance cannot be described as one or more complete parcels, a .DWG file containing the boundary of said property shall be required at the time of application.   

GENERAL INFORMATION AS TO WHY THESE PROCEDURES HAVE BEEN ADOPTED

All information being obtained as a part of these requirements will assist in the City’s maintenance of the addressing, building, and centerline feature layers within the citywide GIS, existing Division of Sewerage and Drainage mapping system, and/or GIS applications currently under development by the City of Columbus for the purpose of analyzing development patterns within the City.  Scanned copies of the documents described within these procedures will initially be available to City of Columbus employees by way of its Intranet.  In time it is the City’s intention to make these scanned documents available for the general public’s viewing by way of the Internet.

In all .DWG submissions requiring a boundary line or polygon of the development area, this boundary will be exported to ArcGIS and be used to help create an interactive web site that tracks development projects within the City of Columbus.  Although the site is still under development, it is anticipated that it will eventually enable developers to search for their projects by project name and extract status reports from the One Stop Shop without the necessity of accessing Velocity Hall.  If additional information is then required, these reports would provide the associated permit numbers thereby promoting an easier search within Velocity Hall.

It is also the City’s intention to offer to share the cadastral and planimetric line work obtained as a part of these procedures with various county auditors to aid in the maintenance of their GIS base maps systems.  Representatives of the Franklin County Auditor’s office have indicated that this would be of assistance.

STANDARDS AVAILABILITY

Copies of the City’s Digital Submission Standards and a .DWG submission template may be downloaded from the City of Columbus Internet site at: 

2008 Digital Submission Standards 

 A detailed listing of the cadastral and planimetric layers the City desires as a part of future digital submissions are contained within both the City’s Digital Submission Standards and .DWG template.

Questions about the process can be sent to OneStopPlans@columbus.gov.