News   Apr 26, 2024
Sustainability Month: ReHousing — A Multiplex How-To Guide Explores What’s Possible in the Yellowbelt
 1.7K     4 
News   Apr 26, 2024
Mattamy's Soleil and Mile & Creek Condos in Milton’s Flourishing Landscape
 362     0 
News   Apr 26, 2024
Galleria on the Park Soon to Welcome First Residents of Masterplanned Community
 932     1 

Toronto's AIC + Other Municipal Development Application Portals (UX/UI/APIs & Opendata)

N

Northern Light

Superstar
Member Bio
Joined
May 20, 2007
Messages
31,903
Reaction score
89,517
Location
Toronto/EY
Thanks to you both @Art Tsai and @ChesterCopperpot

I'm finding w/the new iteration of the AIC there are some addresses I can't get it to admit to.........drives me right nuts (it doesn't believe there is a 350 Bloor East) LOL

****

No new docs as yet; which is what I wanted to check as I see a new lobbyist registration on this one effective yesterday.
 
The new AIC is awful, especially for users who know how to use the system.

Each iteration of the AIC has gotten progressively worse. The current version verges on unusable, its ridiculously frustrating to use with frequent dead links, extremely slow load times, poor UI, everything.

The old-school system which ran 3-4 years ago was far more efficient at pulling information, if slightly less intuitive for inexperienced users.. who I imagine are a fraction of users anyway.
 
innsertnamehere said:
The new AIC is awful, especially for users who know how to use the system.

Each iteration of the AIC has gotten progressively worse. The current version verges on unusable, its ridiculously frustrating to use with frequent dead links, extremely slow load times, poor UI, everything.

The old-school system which ran 3-4 years ago was far more efficient at pulling information, if slightly less intuitive for inexperienced users.. who I imagine are a fraction of users anyway.
Click to expand...

seconded - much prefer the previous iteration.
 
Honestly, the city should provide this info as open data. Give me an API, let me build a proper UI around it. The city clearly doesn't have the resources to build a proper app for this and there's a great civic tech community here that could build a much nicer and more accessible frontend for that info given the opportunity. All we need is the data.
 
innsertnamehere said:
The new AIC is awful, especially for users who know how to use the system.

Each iteration of the AIC has gotten progressively worse. The current version verges on unusable, its ridiculously frustrating to use with frequent dead links, extremely slow load times, poor UI, everything.

The old-school system which ran 3-4 years ago was far more efficient at pulling information, if slightly less intuitive for inexperienced users.. who I imagine are a fraction of users anyway.
Click to expand...
100% right. Also, depending on your security infrastructure, you may not be able to access the site at all. It's insane.
 
The folks in charge of the AIC:

aic.JPG


Source
 
smably said:
Honestly, the city should provide this info as open data. Give me an API, let me build a proper UI around it. The city clearly doesn't have the resources to build a proper app for this and there's a great civic tech community here that could build a much nicer and more accessible frontend for that info given the opportunity. All we need is the data.
Click to expand...
the City had one of the best development portals in the province for years, and was a leader in municipalities to post development files online. Many GTA municipalities still don't post development materials publicly.

They had a simple, but very functional UI for years which worked well. Then they decided to "improve it", which made it worse, 2-3 years ago (can't recall exactly when). Since they then decided that version wasn't bad enough, they then changed it up again to the current system, which is just spectacularly bad.
 
smably said:
Honestly, the city should provide this info as open data. Give me an API, let me build a proper UI around it. The city clearly doesn't have the resources to build a proper app for this and there's a great civic tech community here that could build a much nicer and more accessible frontend for that info given the opportunity. All we need is the data.
Click to expand...

Come here. LOL

Here's what available.

Open Data Dataset

open.toronto.ca open.toronto.ca

Tell me what else you need, and I can see what we can rattle loose.
 
Northern Light said:
Come here. LOL

Here's what available.

Open Data Dataset

open.toronto.ca open.toronto.ca

Tell me what else you need, and I can see what we can rattle loose.
Click to expand...
I basically only ever go to the AIC to download documents. To be useful, the API would need a list of documents associated with each application and a way to programmatically download each file, ideally just a deep link directly to the file. I suspect that this would be a big ask, unfortunately.
 
smably said:
I basically only ever go to the AIC to download documents. To be useful, the API would need a list of documents associated with each application and a way to programmatically download each file, ideally just a deep link directly to the file. I suspect that this would be a big ask, unfortunately.
Click to expand...

The data in that CSV is sufficient to fix Northern Lights specific issue as someone could replace the address lookup method (hit and miss in the city search) and provide a direct link to the APPLICATION_URL.
 
Figured this topic could use a dedicated thread as I've seen discussion in various building threads regarding the process of finding data and documents for developments. The history of Toronto's Application Information Centre (AIC) has also been turbulent, with recent updates significantly impacting ease of use and these changes should be documented. Feel free to use this thread to discuss and make comparisons to other cities' online data portals and user-friendliness.

Relevant discussion has been copied above from the 110 Adelaide Street East thread.
 
Last edited:
Paclo said:
Figured this topic could use a dedicated thread as I've seen discussion in various building threads regarding the process of finding data and documents for developments. The history of Toronto's Application Information Centre (AIC) has also been turbulent, with recent updates significantly impacting ease of use and these changes should be documented. Feel free to use this thread to discuss and make comparisons to other cities' online data portals and user-friendliness.

Relevant discussion has been copied above from the 110 Adelaide Street East thread.
Click to expand...
I hope someone has drawn this useful thread to the attention of Greg Lintern! In general, the City is willing to share information but their 'front-ends' are almost always dreadful. In this case, a few years ago they replaced a very functional 'legacy system' with a worse 'new system' and have now made that even worse!
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top