How local government planners can use fast, cited hazard screening for permit review and zoning, what it does well, and where a licensed survey is still required.
Local government planners make hazard-related calls every week: permit reviews, zoning questions, clearances. The data to back those calls exists, but it is scattered across agencies and slow to pull together. This guide is about closing that gap.
Flood maps live with DOST-NOAH. Fault lines live with PHIVOLCS. Terrain, waterways, and boundaries live in other datasets. Each is free, but checking one parcel against all of them by hand is slow, and doing it consistently across many applications is harder still.
So in practice, a planner under time pressure either leans on local knowledge or waits on a formal study. Both have a place, but neither gives a fast, repeatable, cited first read for routine cases.
A hazard screening pulls the public layers together for one location and returns a structured, consistent read: which flood zones, how close to a fault, the slope and elevation, storm-surge exposure, nearby waterways, and more. For an office, three things matter most:
CheckHazard reads eleven hazard layers for an address and explains each in plain language, with the thresholds laid out on the methodology page so your office can see exactly how a rating is reached.
A screening is decision support, not a replacement for the office's own ordinances, an ocular inspection, or a licensed survey where one is required by law.
Use it to triage and to flag. When an application lands on a parcel near a fault, in a frequent flood zone, or on a debris-flow fan, the screening surfaces that early and consistently, so the right applications get routed to the deeper review they need. It does not certify a parcel, and it does not carry an engineer's stamp. For decisions that require a geodetic or geotechnical survey, that survey is still the authority.
The LGU planner guide covers how this fits a permit workflow in more detail.
The goal is not to replace professional judgment. It is to make sure every application starts from the same solid, documented base.
CheckHazard does not replace a professional geotechnical or engineering survey, or an LGU's own ordinances and inspections. It is screening support built on public data.