County uses CD-ROM to make GIS accessible

Franklin County, Ohio, Auditor Joe Testa is working with officials from other local government agencies to streamline the acquisition of data and enhance the existing database of the Columbus GIS.

The GIS consists of 2,371 aerial photographs, planimetric maps, appraisal maps and two-foot contour maps. Built and maintained by the auditor’s real estate assessment fund, it contains 69 data layers including streets, rivers, buildings and parcel values. Beginning in January 1995, the auditor’s office made the entire GIS database available on CD-ROM, and both the public and private sectors await each quarterly release.

This is an important task in a county of more than a million residents, 540 square miles and approximately 350,000 parcels of real estate. The county, which grows an average of 5,000 to 8,000 parcels per year, was the first in the state to begin mass producing this information for public-use access.

Additionally, the auditor’s office has taken the process a step further, establishing the County Auditor Reciprocal Data Agreement (CARDA), which allows municipalities, libraries, school districts, townships and area commissions to tap into the GIS, since they possess information that can assist the county auditor’s office in appraising real estate, one of its many statutory duties.

By agreeing to provide the office with detailed information from building permits, demolition notices, zoning maps, school expansions and building plans, these entities can receive the disk and all data updates at no charge. The 50 CARDA members include the city of Columbus, the state environmental protection agency and the county’s 9-1-1 emergency services.

Additionally, the Columbus Fire Department has had several custom plots produced to determine routes for quicker emergency response time. And, the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office has used custom plots for assistance in various trials.

Indeed, the county’s system may save Columbus $5 million to $10 million in total costs, says Maureen Conley, director of administrative services for Columbus, by providing the city with the CARDA database it used to create its own GIS.

Direct public access to the auditor’s office has also been enhanced by the GIS, which allows citizens to create color plots by selecting any of the data layers or scale sizes they need. An 8 1/2-inch-by-11-inch plot goes for i, and a 36-inch-by-30-inch plot goes for $3.

In the future, the GIS will contain information on zoning, soil layers, underground storage tanks and digital aerial photography.

Thematics — the ability to highlight specific criteria such as property value ranges — is also being added, and a direct link is being planned between Franklin County and Columbus that wilt establish real-time maintenance and eliminate redundant data in the system.

This year, as the county’s aerial photography is updated, the municipalities whose limits extend beyond the county line will be able to “piggyback” the flight lines, thereby updating their entire municipal database at a reduced cost.

“We have built a tremendous public resource here,” says Testa. “Through CARDA, we have multiplied the public use of our database by freely sharing it with local, state and federal government. Intergovernmental cooperation such as this strengthens our collective public service capabilities.”