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GIS Partnership Summary

Map, Analyze, Plan: Upstate New York [M-A-P:UNY]

Partnership Purpose and Goal:

The partnership’s purpose is to make Real Property land use and housing condition information more universally available, and usable, to neighborhood preservation companies and rural preservation companies throughout upstate New York as well as to the county agencies responsible for planning and real property tax administration. County Land Use and Housing Condition Atlases will be created for a majority of upstate counties and will be available both to county officials and local preservation companies for strategic planning purposes. Enhanced electronic data will also be provided to the counties and/or regional agencies, if they so desire, at the end of each county project. MapInfo Corporation is making 10 free copies of its software available to selected upstate preservation companies, through the Neighborhood Preservation Coalition, to insure the enhanced data will be available, and used and enhanced by companies for their own planning purposes.

Status 8-2010


Participants and Resource Contributions:

Chemung, Cortland, Genesee, Greene, Orleans, Saratoga, Schoharie, Schuyler, Steuben, Ulster, Warren and Wyoming Counties - Provided low/no cost digital tax maps and Real Property Data. Other counties are being put on the schedule for this year at this time. We ultimately hope that most upstate counties will have a Land Use and Housing Condition Atlas available.

City of Albany Department of Assessment & Taxation - The Commissioner made a presentation to the summer session classes, informing them about the wealth of data available in the Real Property System.

Cortland County Planning Department - They are supplying the data and detailing staff to clean up errors and omissions. Their Planning Director also came to Albany and addressed the class, discussing his hopes for the project.

Delaware County - The Delaware County Planning Department supplied the parcel shape files.  In some towns, the  Real Property System [RPS] data had to be determined by on site visits to the assessors offices.  Other assessors helped with missing or ambiguous data.

Hamilton County - The County Director of Real Property Tax Services provided the GIS shapefiles and helped to clarify missing or ambiguous Real Property System [RPS] data. Copies of the study and atlas were provided to each town Supervisor and Village Mayor as well as to other relevant agencies within the county.

Local Preservation Companies - Provided some staff time to clean up missing data.

MapInfo Corporation is providing 10 free copies of their software and ten free training seats at their Troy, NY training facility, one for each company chosen to receive the free software.

Rensselaer County - The County I.T. Department supplied the parcel shape files and assessors were asked to help clean up ambiguities or omissions in the data.

Saratoga County - Data was supplied by the Real Property Tax Services Office. A staff member from that office helped the students to clean up missing/ambiguous data with the help of the local assessors. Original atlases and PDF copies were supplied to the county. This Real Property staff member and a planner from the county planning department also came to address the class when the work was begun.

Schoharie County - Schoharie County Real Property Tax Services supplied the base maps and worked with SUNY students to clarify overflow and unknown parcels. The County Planning Department presented the finished study and atlas to the County Board of Supervisors for formal acceptance in the fall of 2008.

Southern Tier Central Planning & Development - Will take the enhanced electronic data and make it available on their website.

Steuben County - Steuben Church people Against Poverty [SCAP] has asked the Coalition to update their 2002 atlas as the data has helped to leverage over 3 million dollars in housing monies since they began using the information in grant applications.

SUNY-Albany - The Department of Geography and Planning is very supportive of the concept and has begun to offer a graduate/undergraduate Planning Topics course discussing the integration of GIS and RPS data for planning in upstate New York. The course is being taught by the Coalition’s GIS Specialist. We are also discussing the use of graduate interns when capital district counties are done. The projects from the 2006 and 2007 classes are available below.

Ulster County – Provided staff time to clean up missing parcel property class codes and housing condition data for its atlas. The enhanced files will be shared with Ulster County for their use and may ultimately be available on their GIS website. A Rural Preservation Company that works in Ulster County is now increasing their staff capacity and is asking the Coalition's GIS Specialist to assist them in updating the atlas that was done by the SUNY-Albany class in 2005.

Warren County Planning Department - Their GIS Coordinator allowed the class access to their intranet to download the parcel shape files. The GIS Coordinator also came to the class to discuss her hopes for the project.

Washington County - The County Board of Supervisors waived the fees associated with provision of the GIS shapefiles and County Real Property Tax Services provided the shapefiles with associated Real Property System [RPS] data. The students in Planning Topics, SUNY/Albany, 2009 or town assessors clarified ambiguous or missing data. A copy of the study was provided to the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, the Director of Real Property Tax Services and the County Planning Department. PDF Copies of the material were provided to each town assessor.

Western Catskills Community Revitalization Council - The council's service area is comprised of towns in Delaware, Greene and Schoharie Counties. Data from previously completed atlases was integrated with new materials from Delaware Count to create a land use and housing condition atlas for this group's service area. Staff from the company assisted in researching unknown parcel shapes for resolution and also worked with local assessors to clarify housing condition for some parcels.

Time Frame

Date Partnership Began: January 2004
Completed: No

Deliverables:

A County Land Use and Housing Condition Atlas will be provided to County Planning and Real Property Tax Service Agencies as well as all local preservation companies that have a service area that includes the county being analyzed. Adjacent county planning and real property tax service agencies will also be provided copies of completed atlases. Thus far most counties have been provided their own as well as adjoining county information. Enhanced GIS data will also be provided to 9 Counties at the completion of their project, when requested.

Brief Summary of Partnership:

The partnerships continue to work as expected. There are some unexpected delays in getting missing and unknown data from local assessors due to the cyclical nature of their duties, but it has not been problematic. The counties thus far have been very receptive to having a planning tool at their disposal that they could not create themselves with available staff resources. The local preservation companies are happy to have a planning tool that allows them to refine their strategic housing plans for their service area, using a data source that is already in place and collected uniformly throughout upstate New York.

Contact Information:

Bob Breglio - Director of G.I.S. & Assessment
The Central Research Group, Inc.
593 Cook Road, Preston Hollow, NY 12469
Phone: 518-239-4188
Fax: 518-239-8399
E-mail: bob65432@yahoo.com