Dynamic Building Permit Guide for Trelleborg Municipality
Anyone who has ever tried to work out whether a project requires a building permit knows how quickly the question can become complicated. Keeping track of all the factors that can affect the decision can feel like a full-time job in itself.
Together with Trelleborg Municipality, we at Twofour have developed a dynamic building permit guide that helps residents understand, step by step, what applies to their planned project. The guide adapts its guidance based on the user’s answers to a series of questions, with each question informed by previous responses.
The goal is to minimise, and ideally eliminate, incorrect applications. When more residents understand the requirements from the outset, it becomes easier to submit complete documentation. This means municipal case officers spend less time answering recurring questions and requesting additional information. Everyone benefits: residents and case officers alike.
The Challenge
Building permit questions are rarely straightforward for anyone who does not deal with them every day. Local regulations and practical details also affect the assessment. Is the building protected for its heritage value? Is it within a shoreline protection area? There are many possible variations.
This often creates uncertainty. Many residents contact the municipality before they know what they actually need to ask, and many applications require additional information because the necessary documents are missing or the circumstances have not been described clearly enough.
Publishing more information is only part of the solution. That information also needs to be easier to follow, simpler to update and relevant to each individual situation.
The Solution
The dynamic building permit guide is structured as a question-based flow that takes residents through the choices and details that affect the assessment. Instead of having to interpret lengthy information pages themselves, users answer specific questions and receive clearer guidance on the next steps.
For a project such as a swimming pool, the guide might ask about a pool enclosure, its height and location, and any changes to ground levels. Depending on the answers, users can find out whether a building permit is required, whether a formal notification is sufficient, and exactly which documents they should prepare.
The guide includes help text and explanations of terms where they are most useful. If a user needs to estimate the volume of excavated material, for example, the explanation can appear directly alongside the question rather than on a separate information page.
An Editing Interface Built for Complex Rules
The editing interface is a central part of the project. It gives the municipality a powerful administration interface for managing the guide’s questions, help text and decision logic.
The decision logic is based on DMN decision tables. These allow different combinations of answers to be linked to clear outcomes and checklists. Editors can immediately see how the rules relate to one another and which outcomes different combinations of answers produce.
For example, a pool enclosure below a certain height might result in guidance stating that a building permit is not required, but that a formal notification may still be necessary. A taller enclosure might instead trigger a building permit requirement and a list of documents that need to be submitted.
From Guidance to Better Documentation
The guide is designed to support residents before they proceed to an application or online service. It produces a clear checklist that can be downloaded and printed. Users also receive a collection of sample documents illustrating what an elevation drawing, for example, needs to include.
Accessibility and Secure Information Handling
The project is designed in accordance with the new Accessibility Directive. The guide accommodates users with different needs and supports assistive technologies and keyboard navigation.
Because building permit enquiries may involve personal data and property-related information, data minimisation and control over storage are important parts of the work. The municipality can determine what information is collected, why it is needed and how long it is retained.
Monitoring and Improvement
An important part of the project is enabling the municipality to learn from how the guide is used. Usage statistics can reveal where users get stuck, which types of enquiries are most common and which questions frequently cause uncertainty.
These insights make it easier to improve the guide’s content over time. In the longer term, this can help reduce requests for additional information, ensure residents are better prepared and make the building permit process more efficient.
Results
The building permit guide gives Trelleborg Municipality a new way to support residents early in the building permit process. Instead of requiring residents to interpret regulations and search for the right documents themselves, it provides a guided flow in which each answer leads to more relevant guidance.
For Trelleborg Municipality, the project represents a step towards a clearer, data-driven approach to planning and building administration that is easier to manage. For residents, it offers a simpler path from an idea to the right next step.