| 
A Kendall Square startup that encourages tech-driven feedback on real estate development has added sought-after Cambridge to its live database.
coUrbanize is partnering with the city to post summaries and details of 42 projects that are in permitting or under construction, including the 1-million-square-foot Kendall Square urban renewal plan and approximately 3,000 new residential units across the city.
coUrbanize was co-founded in 2013 by Karin Brandt, who received her master’s degree in city planning from MIT and sought to use technology to keep residents informed and involved in the land-use planning process. The platform gives residents a new avenue to participate in the process outside the traditional public hearing forum.
Over the past year, Cambridge planning officials have been sharing their open data system with coUrbanize, which built a website showing the location and details of all development proposals and construction projects.
The site is designed as a central clearinghouse for developers’ filings, which had been located in various parts of the city’s website. coUrbanize enhanced the public documents by adding street locations and brief narrative summaries of the projects.
“Reading a 400-page PDF can be a little bit overwhelming, so we added basic descriptions of what this project means in a few seconds,” Brandt said.
Visitors to the site can leave comments on individual properties and post updates on ongoing projects.
The timing is good, with debate over development emerging as a major issue in this year’s Cambridge city council races, Brandt noted.
There is no cost to the city, said Iram Farooq, Cambridge’s assistant city manager for community development.
“This is what happens when you put out data for people to use,” Farooq said. “You hope they create some neat stuff with it, so this is a great example of the coming together of the private and the public sectors.”
In January, coUrbanize launched an online platform for the city of Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development to provide information on development of city-owned properties, in conjunction with Mayor Martin Walsh’s plan to sell 300 parcels for low- and middle-income housing.
coUrbanize recently added the MARTA public transit system in Atlanta to its list of clients, with a database of transit-oriented development planned for parking lots near its stations. The company has been posting development information on projects in the town of Ashland for nearly a year, and has launched a site tracking campus building projects by five community colleges in San Antonio, Texas.
