In 2022, city staff in Somerville, MA decided to convert their Zoning Ordinance into an enCodePlus portal, with the intent of adding additional documents over time. They were drawn to the system’s versatile branding options and features that would make their documents more accessible to the public.
The Zoning Ordinance has all of the standard features, such as auto-updating hyperlinked internal cross- references, pop-up definitions, and search capability, plus premium features including Development Calculators, Content Assembler, GeoZone mapping tools, and a Zoning Navigator. The Development Calculators help users calculate the requirements for Green Score, Affordable Housing needs, Linkage and Civic/Open Space Payments, and Outdoor Lighting based on statistics from their current projects. GeoZone presents an interactive zoning map that includes tools such as Land Use Lookup, District Summary, and Parcel Summary, allowing users to find permitted uses, dimensional standards, and links to relevant portions of the Zoning Ordinance based on a specific parcel. The Zoning Navigator and Content Assembler assist users in finding specific information quickly, by presenting it in an easy-to-use landing page and by gathering all regulations relating to each zoning district together.
The city’s Comprehensive Plan, SomerVision 2040, also has a home in enCodePlus, with its own Plan Navigator highlighting important portions of the plan. Future projects include providing complete historical records of both the Code of Ordinances and the Zoning Ordinance that will allow users to see the full version of each document as it existed at any point in time.
Automatically archives and provides historical versions of code sections.
