Usecase: Automating Urban Planning Checks
- Future Insight
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Client use case
Client’s organisation | City of Tallinn |
Client’s name | Christopher Raitviir |
Client Job title | Head of Digital Construction, |
Involved department(s) | Urban Planning & Strategic Management Office |
Involved parties
Organisation name | |
Description core activities of department | Responsible for strategic urban development and spatial planning, including assessing zoning plans against the master plan. The department focuses on digital innovation and data management to streamline permitting processes and create a high-quality urban living environment. |
Involved key figures | Christopher Raitviir, Head of Digital Construction |
Organisation name | |
Description core activities of department | Responsible for spatial planning policies and regulations at the national level. |
Involved key figures | Reginal Viljasaar-Frenzel, National Digital Twin Product Owner |
Description use case
Tallinn’s urban planners were drowning in a "data mess," wasting valuable time manually cross-referencing over 20 disconnected databases to verify zoning plans. By bridging GIS and BIM, we implemented a solution that replaces this manual chaos with automated rule checking and intuitive 3D visualizations. This created a Single Source of Truth that provides instant "traffic light" feedback on compliance. The result? Planners have stopped searching for documents and started making faster, smarter decisions to shape the city.
The challenge
What problem are we solving? | The primary issue being addressed is the inefficiency of traditional urban planning checks, where verifying detailed zoning plans against the city's master plan is a laborious manual process. Planners are currently forced to navigate through a fragmented landscape of non-standardized drawings and non-machine-readable texts, while consulting over 20 disconnected databases containing heavy datasets like legislation, land registry, and heritage information. |
What were the consequences of this problem | The direct consequence of this fragmentation is that planners spend the vast majority of their time searching for information across hundreds of pages rather than analyzing it. This lack of centralization creates a "data mess" where data ownership is unclear, leading to significant confusion and silos where different departments—such as green management and transport—work with isolated data, resulting in conflicting requirements that only surface late in the process. |
How did this affect the customer's daily operations or strategic goals? | This situation severely hampers daily operations by leaving decision-makers with almost no time to actually make decisions, as their energy is consumed by data gathering. Consequently, developers and citizens face slow processes and contradictory advice, such as one department planning a park where another plans a tram line, because the various stakeholders are not operating within the same "data space." |
The result
What was the result of this use case? | The result is the development of a functional Proof of Concept (POC) or prototype that allows you to easily connect and analyze various sources of GIS (geographic information) and BIM (building information) data together in one digital space. This system delivers an end product capable of automated urban planning checks and visualization. This way the computer handles the tedious search and analysis tasks so that decision-makers can focus on the more important and value-adding work. |
What is the added value of the Clearly.Hub here? | Clearly.Hub acts as the data integration platform which serves as the “Single Source of Truth” for connecting different GIS and BIM data with relevant services for analyzing, visualizing and automating geo-related processes. |
Which lessons were learned? | A key insight is that while the technology is fully ready and not a "fairytale," the biggest challenge lies in the natural human tendency to resist change. However, despite this initial friction, the majority of stakeholders are positive and recognize that adopting this future-proof approach is necessary to simplify their work and overcome the learning curve. |
What are the next steps? | The immediate next step is to slightly tweak the seven existing checks to transform the current prototype into a fully usable Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for daily operations. Following the first implementation in Tallinn, the plan is to scale the solution nationally across Estonia and further internationally to countries like Finland, Sweden, and Denmark, which have already expressed interest because they face identical challenges in their urban planning processes. |
Tired of manual checks? Discover Clearly.Hub today!
Do you recognize the frustration of manual checks, scattered data sources, and conflicting departmental information? You don’t have to let administrative chaos slow down your city’s development.
Join the future of digital planning and construction. Contact us today to discover how Clearly.Hub can turn your data into clear, actionable decisions.
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