[Massplanners] digitizing plans

[Benson, Rachel]

Hi Barbara,
Here in Wrentham, we've taken the piece-meal approach on digitizing old plans and other records because every project eventually comes back around.
When we have down time, we will go through the Clerk's Planning & Zoning archives and scan the files we find. We've previously used a Senior Tax Worker to scan files as well.

Can I ask, what files are "leaving" the building? Are these files going to an off-site storage location or are people "checking" them out?
Wrentham's Town Clerk had a Records company come in and "archive" their files but they are in an onsite climate-controlled vault. I will say having to go back through these boxes, the Records company was not precise in describing what went into these boxes.

We label everything by street address because that is a common attribute that multiple departments use (Assessing, Building, Board of Health, DPW, etc.) so we can easily reference the same project.

For older subdivisions, if we can find the "original" address, we'll use that for the e-folder name with the subdivision name (i.e. "Park St, 295 - Mill Pond SBD") and place the scanned files into a standard folder template that we created.
If we can't find the original address, we'll label the e-folder as the street name and subdivision name (i.e. "Park St, off - Mill Pond SBD").
For residential subdivisions, we don't further track the parcels unless they come forward with a Special Permit for something else (i.e. Home Occupation or ADU).
For commercial subdivisions, we DO further track those parcels because they typically need special permits for their Use from the Planning Board and will typically have an entirely new set of documents for that submission.
We've tried including the street names in the folder names but didn't pan out how we thought it would. We instead track that in a "Streets" spreadsheet we share with the DPW.

Hope that helps and happy to discuss further!

Thank you, and have a great day!

Rachel Benson
Director of Planning & Economic Development
Town of Wrentham
79 South Street
Wrentham, MA 02093
508-384-5441
www.wrentham.gov<http://www.wrentham.gov/>
Please note that Wrentham Town Hall is closed on Fridays.

Please be advised that the Massachusetts Secretary of State considers e-mail to be a public record and, therefore, subject to the Massachusetts Public Records Law, M.G.L. c. 66 § 10.

From: MassPlanners <massplanners-bounces at masscptc.org> On Behalf Of Barbara Carboni via MassPlanners
Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2024 2:03 PM
To: MassPlanners at masscptc.org
Subject: [Massplanners] digitizing plans


Good afternoon all,

We're embarking on a project of digitizing ZBA and Planning Board records, which includes subdivision plans from 1960s forward.  I'm looking for advice from anyone who has done this:


  1.  What is your system for keeping track of what leaves the building?
  2.  We're going to use map & parcel for as many records as we can, but for older subdivision plans, the lots created by them didn't have map and parcel numbers yet.  What is the best way to "tag" this plan so that it will show up when someone searches the records by the map & parcel of their lot?
  3.  Any other advice?

Thanks
Barbara

Barbara Carboni  AICP  MCPPO
Truro Town Planner and Land Use Counsel
(508) 214 0928

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