Technical training for staff from the Beirut Municipality Engineering Division

Engineering Division employees responsible for archiving the massive amount of information related to land parcels in Beirut Municipality participated in technical training courses in July of 2007 designed to enable the manual records to be fully computerized for use by engineers, surveyors, municipal officials, and others. Part of efforts to ensure that human resource capacities are consistent with the technical strategies and systems being implemented, the training is essential as well to municipal employees being able to sustain the initiative beyond the project.

Employees were provided specialized training in the use of the Parcel Information Card (PIC) system, a land parcel information management system developed by SUNY/CLD to address the need for standardization and automation in the collection and maintenance of data. More than 25,000 land parcel records in Beirut Municipality – many with hundreds of associated documents – maintained in physical record books and files occupying multiple offices are now being transferred to the database.

The system allows the archived information such as buildings, land usage, zoning, restrictions, parking availability, etc. related to each parcel to be collected, input, and managed electronically for use by engineers for example in analyzing construction license applications. In the future access to timely, accurate information regarding land parcels will enable engineers, surveyors, municipal officials and others to benefit fully from the Municipal Geographic Information System (MGIS) - to which the PIC will be linked – in support of expanded taxation, inspection, auditing, and planning capacities.