Semantic Web Technologies for Building Permitting

This chapter covers the use of Semantic Web Technologies (SWTs) for machine-based management of building permits. As motivation, an overview of the SMART standards classifications is given, an indication of the maturity of digitized building permits regarding the standardization body in Europe. The chapter covers digital building permit aspects in the Semantic Web regarding documents, data models, compliance checking, and process management. Therefore, the reader is first introduced to the fundamentals of Linked Data and the SWT stack, including the Resource Description Framework, federated querying (SPARQL), a notion of ontologies (Web Ontology Language), and validation technologies (Shapes Constraint Language). Based on fundamentals, specific ontologies for the built environment and building permits are presented to be used as the central data models for Semantic Web-based validation of building permits. The conversion process from natural language regulations towards machine-readable rulesets is outlined, including examples on how SWTs can improve current methods. The chapter's content is illustrated by practical cases and projects from academia and industry. Eventually, the chapter concludes with an outlook on the technological landscape.