Buenos Aires 3D City - Observatory of Public Sector Innovation

Buenos Aires 3D City is an open digital platform that allows three-dimensional visualization of each neighborhood and, specifically, the areas where it is possible to build infrastructure (i.e., housing, commercial and retail buildings, etc.) according to the current city's regulations. The platform is open to district decision-makers and professionals working in the construction industry; it functions as an interdisciplinary work tool to simplify procedures, provide predictability and transparency, and streamline the tasks of all the public institutions involved along the process.

Innovation Summary

Innovation Overview

Buenos Aires 3D City is a three-dimensional visualization platform that provides geographic figures of each urban code (or district) as per the current infrastructure and building regulations approved by the Legislature. It is possible to access to information about the plans, land use, and affectations with access to theme-specific options for obtaining detailed information.

Before this was implemented, the construction procedures had to go through a long bureaucratic process which was not only time consuming but discretional and up for diverse interpretations of the cadaster and the urban code. In short, the process was unreliable. With Buenos Aires 3D City all the information is codified and accesible to citizens whether private or business/investors. The platform is currently of great demand and it is, therefore, under continuous improvement so that any resident of Buenos Aires has the possibility of accessing to the most reliable and up-to-date information possible in a user friendly way.

The aim is to turn Buenos Aires 3D City into the official platform to initiate construction procedures by integrating it with the city's remote help desk (Trámites a Distancia).

Innovation Description

What Makes Your Project Innovative?

3D City was developed as open source so it is available to any third party of interest, whether a citizen or a private firm, investor or researcher. It brings about the concept of "Digital Twin" which compiles virtually and in 3D the urban plan of the city to later in the process be interpreted by algorithms and build predictive models.

3D City was developed in two stages: first the data gathering. All the needed information is processed and put together with geographic algorithms. Second the visualization in 2D and 3D. Once the system is fed with all the necessary information at the level of each land unit, this information is pulled into an API to then be visualized. The platform returns layered visualizations and the possibility of using different filters such as height, types of areas, soil, and the purpose of use.

Innovation Development

Collaborations & Partnerships

The project was initiated by the Secretariat of Innovation and Digital Transformation, together with the Secretariat of Urban Development of the City of Buenos Aires. They worked collaboratively and maintained closer coordination and dialogue with organizations, companies and professionals related to the urban development field.

Users, Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

Buenos Aires 3D City is a tool that simplifies construction procedures in benefit of companies and professionals in the construction sector, as well as citizens who plan to privately develop in the city. It also benefits government actors as they shift their time extra to activities more related to policy-making and service delivery.

Innovation Reflections

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

The results observed during the implementation are:

-More than 13,000 users currently use the platform, which represent a 218% increase of monthly consultations.

- It optimize resources by reducing the times for approval in construction projects, and reduces the bureaucracy and paperwork related to them.

-Time and money savings for both citizens and public institutions.

-A sharp decrease by 88% in the requests for urban planning certificates and 63% in help desk consultations.

Challenges and Failures

We faced two main challenges to develop the platform:

-To identify and gather the most relevant information to be included in the platform according to the users needs and the needs of access.

-To refine and update the data in quality and quantity so that the predictive model can run.

Conditions for Success

-The team's skills and capacities, and the leadership of the Undersecretariat of Evidence-Based Public Policies, the Secretariat of Innovation and Digital Transformation, and the Secretariat of Urban Development. Through continuous dialogue with the property tech sector and other stakeholders involved in the procedures.

-To make available financial resources, as well as all the reforms that were necessary at the policy and regulatory level to acquire the necessary technology and infrastructure to make the development possible.

-Highly committed Human Resources inside of every institutions related to the project allowing for enhanced coordination and agility in development and implementation.

Replication

The platform can be easily replicated by other government institutions. The experience was shared with more than 20 cities and 10 companies in Argentina and Latin America.

The development of the new rules engine is expected to be completed by mid-October 2022. At the same time, periodic meetings are held with users of the platform where they make their needs known, which allows us to continue adding functionalities to the front end.

Lessons Learned

We learned that it is essential to incorporate dialogue with all the actors along the implementation of the technology process. Another learning was to be able to carry out the project by implementing the top-down methodology.