GIS Needs Assessment. for. The City of East Lansing

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Randell Goodwin
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1 GIS Needs Assessment for The City of East Lansing Prepared by: Jessica Moy and Richard Groop Center for Remote Sensing and GIS, Michigan State University February 24, 2000

2 Executive Summary At the request of the City Manager s Office, the Center for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Science (CRS&GIS), Michigan State University, has conducted a Geographic Information System (GIS) needs assessment for the City of East Lansing. This assessment was designed to evaluate current database practices and determine the extent to which a GIS could improve efficiency within city departments, promote data communication between city departments, and/or encourage data dissemination to the residents of East Lansing. Through interviews conducted with East Lansing departments, it was revealed that a GIS could improve many city government functions. These improvements would enhance data communication between city departments, customer service, mapping capabilities, resident notifications, community policing, and overall decision-making and quality assurance processes. Recommendations for implementation of the GIS fall into two categories: current/development needs and future/maintenance needs. To develop a GIS, the City of East Lansing would need to construct a parcel/address base layer, digitize some additional map layers, create real-time, seamless access to departmental data through SQL programming, purchase GIS software, and train employee personnel. Individual city departments would address most data updates and technical maintenance would be performed through contractors. In the future, modest computer upgrades, data investments, and additional personnel may be necessary. Fundamentals of GIS A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a tool for handling the input, storage, manipulation, analysis, and display of spatial data. Any real world entity that has a location, distribution, or spatial interaction with other entities can be considered spatial data. Therefore, houses along a road, population densities within city blocks, and schools within 500 feet of a railroad track are all types of spatial data. In a GIS, real world objects, such as hospitals, roads, rivers, voting districts, etc. are represented as points, lines, and areas (fig. 1). Some objects lend themselves to particular spatial features. For example, linear objects such as roads, rivers, and railroad tracks are generally represented as lines in the GIS. Space-filling objects such 2

3 as school districts, city boundaries, or ownership parcels are represented as polygons, while objects that are not space-filling, such as houses, well locations, and street intersections are represented as points. Attribute information, is attached to each spatial feature in a GIS. In the hypothetical example (fig. 1), each point feature maintains three attributes: a unique identifier, a name, and an address. Similarly, each line feature maintains a unique identifier, line type, name, and length attribute, while each polygon feature has the associated attributes of unique identifier, polygon type, name, and acreage. The tacit relationship between layers of spatial features and their associated tabular information is the foundation of GIS. This relationship allows the user to perform complex database queries and analyses within the context of spatial location. Figure 1. 3

4 Typical Database Scenarios In a typical city, each department maintains and updates its own database of information. These databases are generally run independently from other departments and thus, are not easily accessed by employees outside of the governing department. Scenario 1: A citizen is contemplating the purchase of a home located at 683 Moorland Drive. Before making a decision, the citizen would like to know the following information about the property. What is the assessed value of the home? Has there ever been a burglary at this address? 4

5 Is the home zoned as rental property? Is this home located within a historic district? In order to answer these simple database questions, information must be attained from four city departments: Assessing, Housing, Planning/Community Development, and the Police Department. This utilizes the valuable time of at least four city employees and may take as many as 3-7 days to complete. Scenario 2: A citizen is contemplating the purchase of a home located at 683 Moorland Drive. Before making a decision, the citizen would like to examine this home within the spatial context of the surrounding ten blocks. How does the assessed value of this home compare to similar homes within the neighboring ten blocks? How many rental homes in this ten block area have an assessed value < $100,000? Is this home within ten blocks of the nearest park, city bus stop, and public elementary school? Answering these simple spatial questions, without the aide of a GIS, would be extremely time consuming. Maps depicting the ten block radius around 683 Moorland Drive would have to be hand drawn and several hundreds of files would need to be accessed from the Assessing, Housing, Planning, and Parks/Recreation departments. Due to these constraints, answers to these types of spatial questions are generally beyond the scope of typical city departments. GIS Solutions In a well-organized GIS, each city department could maintain and update its own database of information. Unlike traditional databases, however, all city departments would possess real-time, seamless access to all departmental databases. In addition, due to the nature of GIS, all information can be accessed as either tabular or map data. Therefore, the database queries in Scenario 1 and the spatial queries in Scenario 2 could be answered by one city employee in a matter of minutes. In order to develop a GIS needs assessment for the City of East Lansing, interviews were held with the following city departments: City Clerk, Code Enforcement and Neighborhood Conservation, Finance, Assessing, and Treasurer, Fire, Planning and Community Development, Parks and Recreation, Police, Public Works and Environmental Services, and the Senior s Program. The interviews were conducted by Jessica Moy, GIS Specialist at CRS&GIS, and Rod 5

6 Taylor, City of East Lansing Information Systems Manager. For details pertaining to the interview participants and individual department assessments, please refer to Appendix A: Interview Report. As the two scenarios above illustrated and as the interviews revealed, there are many ways a GIS could improve city government functions in East Lansing. 1. Improved Data Communication. Throughout the interviews, several employees indicated that their daily tasks could be more efficient if they had real-time access to other departments tabular and spatial data. For example, the Assessor s Office does not have easily accessible maps for the historic districts, neighborhood associations, or rental properties. Therefore, when taxes are being determined for a property, the Assessor s Office must contact several other departments to manually gain this information. Similarly, the Department of Planning and Community Development must contact the Assessor s office, Housing, and the City Clerk on a regular basis to attain necessary data. In addition to enhanced efficiency, improved data communication can promote interaction between departments. Currently, external code violations are issued by P.A.C.E., a component of the Housing Department, while other violations, such as fire code in rental properties, or noise tickets are issued by the fire or police departments. Without improved data communication, these various types of code violations cannot be monitored simultaneously. 2. Resident Notifications. Several departments indicated that they are often required by law to notify residents if their property falls within a pre-determined radius of a particular activity (e.g. a 300 foot buffer). Currently, these notifications are performed through a laborious process. A buffer is handdrawn on a hard copy map, data from one or more departments is gathered and cross-tabulated, and the resulting addresses are sent to an administrative assistant for mailing labels. This process, which can take up to a week to complete, is currently being performed by many departments 5-13 times per month. In a GIS, this entire process can be accomplished by one employee in less than an hour. 3. Improved Mapping Capabilities. Many departments currently map various aspects of the city through a variety of manual techniques. Throughout the interviews, maps 6

7 created with colored pencils, pushpins on the wall, and skillful photocopying were displayed. The accuracy and efficiency gained through computer mapping would greatly assist these departments. 4. Customer Service. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests are made of several city departments on a regular basis. These requests could be addressed more efficiently and with a greater level of information through the use of GIS. For example, new residents, in search of general information, could be quickly supplied with maps and data pertaining to their school and voting districts, housing association, or nearby bus routes, parks, and trails. 5. Decision Making. As senior decision-makers retire, the years of accumulated knowledge must be exchanged for a new method of decision-making. Maps, graphics, and concrete data form a strong foundation for decisions. 6. Quality Assurance. Once decisions have been made, a GIS can be used as a quality assurance tool to monitor the results of these decisions. For example, if resident parking permits have been issued based on demographic information, a GIS can be used to monitor changes in demographics. Changes in average age, population density, and income may affect the number of cars in a given neighborhood, thus altering the need for parking permits. 7. Community Policing. The East Lansing Police Department has indicated a strong desire to expand their community policing capabilities. By analyzing spatial and temporal patterns through GIS, the police department can become proactive, rather than re-active to crime. GIS Needs Assessment Currently, information pertaining to the City of East Lansing is stored in a variety of tabular databases. The data is maintained and updated by individual departments and, in general, is not directly accessible to other departments. Most data is indexed by either parcel or address identifiers. With the exception of the city s parcel map, recently digitized into AutoCad, no spatial data exists in digital format. 7

8 Phase I Current Needs 1. Parcel and Address Base Data. Current data is indexed by parcel or address identifiers. Therefore, a digital polygon layer (parcels) and a digital point file (addresses) should be developed in order to map and analyze current data. These base layers should be in a real-world coordinate space and must contain unique identifiers for each spatial feature. 2. Supplementary Data. Several supplementary data layers should be created. These include voting districts, school districts, neighborhood associations, historic districts, bus routes, and city assets (i.e. parks, libraries, community centers, etc.). These digital data will be easier to maintain and update than current hard copy maps and will be available for use in spatial queries. 3. Seamless Access to Departmental Data. In order to increase internal efficiency and allow for real-time GIS, each department needs access to other departments data. This can be accomplished through SQL programming and queries. Once the SQL network is developed, one employee, sitting at one computer within the East Lansing intranet, can access data from multiple departments for use in database and spatial queries. It should be noted that individual departments would continue to control and update their own data files within the SQL system. 4. Training. In order to promote the understanding and use of GIS, some training is recommended. All data users should have minimal training (recommended: one day of Fundamentals of GIS and Arc/Explorer). At least one person from each department should receive more advanced training (recommended: one day of Fundamentals of GIS and Arc/Explorer, two days of ArcView and one day of specific training for the East Lansing GIS). 5. Management and Updates. Once the basic components of the East Lansing GIS are developed, current management and update needs are minimal. At this time, there is no need to hire additional personnel. While departments may continue to receive some degree of FOIA requests, it is hoped that the Library Technical Manager, currently responsible for information systems, will become the primary point of contact for the public. Similarly, within each department, the employee who has received advanced GIS training should become the point of contact for internal GIS assistance. As 8

9 new spatial data is added to the GIS or advanced GIS decisions arise, consultants can be hired on an as-needed basis. Current practice indicates that this method of renting personnel ensures high quality assistance for minimal cost. 6. Software. Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) produce the leading GIS software. It is recommended that several copies of the ESRI ArcView GIS software be purchased (recommended: at least one copy per department). The City of East Lansing may also explore potential partnerships to receive this data. Tri-County Regional Planning maintains a site license for ESRI software. This license could potentially be extended to include the City of East Lansing. All computers should maintain a copy of the ESRI Arc/Explorer software. Arc/Explorer is a simple GIS software that is free via the Internet and can be used to quickly view, query, and map spatial data. Future Needs 1. Data and Resources. As the utilization of GIS expands, additional data and resources may become necessary (e.g. a municipal tree inventory, digital data containing sidewalk, sewer line, or water main locations, etc.). These data should be addressed on an as-needed basis. 2. Hardware. As new hardware becomes necessary, modest computer upgrades can be built into the annual budget. 3. Personnel. As the utilization of GIS expands, it may become necessary to hire additional personnel. Cities with an established GIS generally hire a manager to maintain the GIS and a technician (often a student intern) to handle FOIA requests. Cities are frequently able to recoup the cost of these positions through gains in internal efficiency and costrecovery fees from FOIA requests. Potentials for Partnership In a GIS environment, partnerships can provide useful resources such as data, technical expertise, and cost sharing. The City of East Lansing has many potential partners. 1. Michigan State University technical expertise, data, potential for grants 2. Tri-County Regional Planning data, potential for software licenses 9

10 3. City of Lansing data and technical expertise from the Police Department 4. Utility Companies CAD data, Digital Orthophotos 5. Other Non-Governmental Organizations data 10

Appendix A. City of East Lansing Interview Report

Appendix A. City of East Lansing Interview Report Department: City Clerk Meeting Participants: Sue Donnell, City Clerk Data Provider: The City Clerk s office maintains and updates all voting and election data. These data include legislative, school, and