Tempe, AZ GIS Data – It Will Cost Ya!
Boy, all I wanted to do is get some GIS data for GIS Day 2009. Little did I know my own hometown is one of the worst offenders of locking up GIS Data.
City of Tempe – Sale of Engineering & GIS Records
Take a look, “$568.70 for each quarter section or 1/4 mile area”. For your own information, Tempe is 40 sq miles in size so do the math. Simply nuts! Plus take a look at their “conditions”:
Conditions and Restrictions
a. All commercial orders and digital data orders will be required to document purpose of use.
b. Plotting orders in excess of $25.00 and all digital data orders will require full pre- payment before order is processed.
c. Digital data will be provided on city-issued media only.
d. All orders and payments must be done in-person only.
I mean really, not only do they “share” it in Microstation, but you have to document the purpose of public data, you have to get the data on “city-issued” media and orders must be made in person. My jaw is still on the floor a week after I looked that this. Time for a little geo-revolution in Arizona. Don’t you think? Prepare to get very tired of my “struggle” against the City of Tempe for their data.
Time to call in the troops, free public data!
Update: Andrew Turner provides a great link to put this in perspective as well as the issues with data licenses on local geodata.
Update 12/01/2009: I just received this from the city:
Hello Mr. Fee,
Thank you for bringing your concerns to the city’s attention. We will review this practice/policy with the City Attorney’s Office and I will get back to you with more information as soon as possible.
Regards,
NikkiNikki Ripley
City of Tempe
Communication and Media Relations Director
At least it is a response. Maybe other organizations who have more power in this valley might be able to get some results. I’m still hopeful though…
My back of the envelope calculation for 40 sq miles at $568.70 a quarter section is about $90,000 for the whole city.
Damn! Best of luck James! I guess you want us to email these folks? http://www.tempe.gov/elected/
It would appear that the whole city would cost just under $100,000.
I’ve emailed the mayor and one of the city council members to bring it to their attention. I’m not hopeful they’ll be able to do anything since they’ll probably just ask the engineering department about it and we know the answer they’ll give.
Believe, this won’t be over until we’ve got the rights to distribute the data freely.
I’m not sure if the same applies in Arizona as it does here in Texas but in the past when we run into something similar like exorbitant cost or flat-out denial of data we usually fall back to filing a freedom of information act request. This has worked in most cases the exception of one for us, and that one we ended up filing a complaint with the Atty. Gen. of Texas and found out we were not the only ones that filed such a complaint.
If the county wants to charge even $100 then I don’t mind paying it but there are some we run into who believe the incomplete data they have is worth $500 and that is usually when we end up sending a letter and it’s amazing that within a matter of weeks we receive the CD at no cost.
As far as I can tell, Arizona does not have a Freedom of Information law. Instead they have the Arizona Public Records Act which only applies to permanent records. This would cover maps and deeds, but not data sets (transcription to paper appears to be the main criteria).
Wow, what a horrible situation. Not citizen of any city should have to pay $100,000 for access to public data.
Clearly we’ve found a new city to rail against after the situation in Santa Clara County has been resolved.
That is unbelievable – the price, the conditions, the whole thing. Is their GIS department (or perhaps the entire City of Tempe government) funded with this?
OMG… I feel like a teenager, but seriously? Does the Tempe GIS manager drive a Bentley?
I know I’ve got a new example to “cities that don’t get it” for my presentations.
Well now this post is the number one Google result for “Tempe, AZ GIS Data”
Hopefully this means no one will be stupid enough to pay these asshats for public data.
Wow, look at this FAQ.
http://www.tempe.gov/engineering/docs/GIS_faqs.pdf
Our data is more accurate because we use bentley. Yea, that’s it guys, the software makes the data more accurate.
Yes what a bunch of asshats.
Just in order to live up to the call for troops:
California’s ruling on the handing over of government data: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/gis_data/
Also – what are the terms on redistribution. Can just put up a ransom for the data and then freely distribute it.
Yea Andrew, for every city that opens data, we’ve got ones like Tempe that lock it up behind price, access and formats. The first step is to expose it, then we can move forward.
@Andrew
100,000 US would be quite a feat. Not being from America in not sure about terms, but I thought public data was public domain.
U.S. Federal Government data is public domain so long as it doesn’t impinge on privacy of citizens or national security.
Local & State government data, however, is under varying, and individual requirements, terms, licenses, and cost recovery schemes.
I’ve mentioned this quagmire before in my blog at http://highearthorbit.com/the-need-for-clear-data-licenses/
[...] by Tempe Guy on November 29, 2009 … data for GIS Day 2009. Little did I know my own hometown is one of the worst offenders of locking up GIS Data. City of Tempe – Sale of Engineering & GIS Records Take a look, “8.70 for each quarter section or 1/4 mile area”. For your own … Go to Source [...]
Although the California Public Records Act (CPRA) requires state and local government records to be provided to anyone requesting them for no more than the cost of duplication, Arizona’s statutes (specifically ARS §39-121.03) provide for fees that can be charged for ‘public data’ that is going to be used for commercial purposes. Those fees include the cost of duplication, plus “…the value of the reproduction on the commercial market as best determined by the public bodyâ€. In other words, what the market will bear.
Admittedly, your request was for a non-commercial use. I know Scottsdale sells its citywide GIS data for $500 for non-commercial purposes. That’s much more reasonable than Tempe, but still not free. The City of Phoenix also sells its GIS data for more than just the cost of reproduction as well.
My company (Mapping Automation) did the COGO-based conversion of Tempe’s parcel records into Intergraph design file format in the mid-1980’s. This was converted to Intergraph’s MGE format with an Oracle backend in the early 1990’s.
I am an advocate of making public data freely accessible—the public, after all, paid for it. However, in Arizona’s case, public agencies can hide behind ARS §39-121.03 and its ambiguous definition of commercial purpose. Until that legislation is modified, there wouldn’t seem to be much legal ground to stand on in trying to convince Tempe that it should reduce its fees. But best of luck in your quest.
Rudy Stricklan, RLS
Wow, what a middle finger to everyone. Clearly Tempe is not serious about sharing data.
As a community we should ban Tempe from ever getting a geo-conference. It is a shame that the most read geoblogger lives in one of the least free cities.
Shame, Tempe, Shame.
[Sigh]
After 20+ years watching this mindset that GIS data has intrinsic value (Yes Sir, Mr. City Council Chair, we know all too well it costs a lot of money to make the data. That’s why we’ll charge the commercial users fair market value – and recoup all our costs!) this is yet another example.
Worse yet, in the post-9/11 world there’s been an unfortunate ‘hardening of the arteries’ that’s strengthening the resolve of the data ‘owners’ to persist in their demands.
Not to worry. Google will make all of this irrelevant soon.
James;
I loved this case in San Diego while still there. I worked on a project for SANDAG, where we were updating thier data for the 2020 General Plan, and they wanted to charge us for thier data, and the project we were working on that we needed the data for was for them.
I know they(Tempe) went through a big project about a year ago where they brought in a consultant team to upgrade there internal web-apps to ArcGIS Server etc, so maybe this is how they are paying for that project!
If their water data is any indication of overall quality, you may find it to be a Pyrrhic victory to finally get it for a reasonable cost.
Here in Arkansas; GIS data is free ranging…
http://www.geostor.arkansas.gov/G6/Home.html
More ‘hidden’ costs of doing business: Even when we’re working for a local government we have to budget differently for acquiring current layers though our contracts state that necessary information will be provided.
I have found that locality GIS departments that sell data are inherently more time consuming to work with than those that do not. They are so afraid that a snippet of public data may get into the wild and diminish their “cost recovery†efforts that we spend hours back and forth with justifications and license agreements. We make every effort to budget and bill this time. Contrast with the good folks who push a nightly update to their public FTP for (simplistic) example.
Occasionally, I run into a small locality that has subd their mapping to a private firm that charges an exorbitant fee for data transfer. I also occasionally run into a locality where the GIS folks sell the data to the department down the hall via the consultant as an internal funds shuffle. We shake our heads and add 15% plus our (unhurried) time.
But my favorite – I was working for one department, called up the mapping department, and this good ol’ boy says, “Nope, not giving it to you; us and them just don’t get alongâ€. I thanked him for his honesty knowing that we have an office full of folks who can recreate anything they have… for a price.
The karma flows back. When we create a new dataset outside of scope, or as part of something else, and we can share it, we are more than happy to pass it on to those who are enjoyable work associates.
I often wonder if these sorts of factors are taken into account when local government financial structures are developed.
sounds like a case of “GIS data” speculation – waiting for the highest GOOGLE BID!
What is really sad is that if the information was freely available some local analysts might be able to come up with informative non commercial uses of the data. I have some ideas for showing some important but maybe overlooked factors related to real estate trends here locally but I am not going to go out and buy it for some analysis idea that may or may not pan out.
As a side note I work for FEMA as a reservist on occasion and we go out to these disasters and the local governments frequently are wanting to charge for the data when FEMA is there to give out money to their constituents! Getting the data often takes several days worth of wrangling to come to an agreement!
This sucks. I forget how spoiled I am living in a state where the best data is made freely available by the state and the local agencies are functionally forced to play along. One more reason to love New England, I guess.
The original conversion cost 2M $US, which is 20 full-city copies over the past 20 years, plus 1 full-city copy a year for the maintainance: 40 full city copies covers the whole deal.
At what point has the cost been recovered? I’m sure the Engineer’s office has all the paperwork…
Does a city need to recover costs? I’d consider this the cost of doing business as a local government. The idea that the GIS Office is managing ROI on something they are required to maintain really disturbs me.
At $90k, this is not only egregious, but criminal in my mind.
Just make me dictator-for-life. And I’ll clean up this mess! Trust me…
Yea, but you’d probably make us wear our underwear on the outside.
I forgot about that one. I’ll add it my campaign “promises”.
One thing I forgot to contribute on this subject is that in my experience many stewards of local data often want to horde it for job security reasons. This has nothing to do with with their cost to create or maintain the data. It’s their baby and they want to be the ones doing the value added work to the GIS data. That is making the maps by request, doing the analysis, making the interactive web maps and so on. The added benefit of this is if there is something wrong with the data they can keep it quiet, ignore it and or put a giant disclaimer on it. They won’t have to put up with any pesky outside analysts pointing out issues with the data. Never mind that government is often inherently not exactly the creative hot bed of new uses of data. Sometimes they are if motivated individuals have too much time on their hands. Thanks to all those conscientious government employees who go above and beyond the call of duty with tax payer dollars and don’t just stream sports broadcasts in their spare time or……..
This is a little cynical and there are good examples of local governments that produce good data and make it available using innovative cutting edge methods but that is definitely not always the case. It should be up to the “free” market to decide who can come up with the best uses for public data.
You guys are off quite a bit on the price.
This FAQ says there are 45 sections to Tempe.
$568.70 * 4 = $2,274.80 for a section.
$2,274.80 * 45 = $102,366
Simply nuts!
Maybe we take a collection to purchase satellite imagery for a quarter section and start collecting data. How would local government react if citizen start collecting data rather than purchasing it from the GIS Department? James, I’m willing to stop digitizing my own neighborhood for a while to help with yours.
I’m interested in condition a). Can they deny your order if they don’t like what you’re doing with the data? Also, if you’re paying (again) for the privelege of using your public data can they tell you what you can and can’t do with the data?
I kind of see that as the same problem with paying for online music that has restrictions. Don’t make me to pay for it then tell me what I can do with it. I didn’t say it was right, it just annoys me!
One wonders how much of their data they’ve actually sold at those prices. Likely very little actual cost recovery going on, more just a deterrent factor to reinforce and justify data hoarding.
Soon after the landbase conversion was finalized, Tempe sold the data to a local utility for $180K. I don’t know about subsequent sales of the data, but the City did pretty well in that one instance.
Having been involved in the project, I find some of the posts… interesting, to say the least. The notion that digitizing from a satellite image would yield results even remotely comparable to COGO-calculated parcel boundaries tied to accurate survey control is ludicrous. Tempe invested in an accurate cadastral reference, prepared and reviewed by registered land surveyors. The fact that Tempe is taking advantage of state legislation that permits cost+ recovery in commercial sales is not hoarding, it’s simply business, and permits operations to be conducted at less direct taxpayer expense.
The issue, in my mind, is sale of the data to non-commercial entities and individuals. Those data transfers should be free, or nearly so, as they represent nominal use by individual taxpayers who have already done their share in underwriting the cost of the data.
Rudy Stricklan, RLS
Thing is, when you sell to individuals, the data inevitably ends up in the hands of commercial services. Over here in St Louis, we routinely get requests from “individuals” who just happen to work for data consolidators. Unless you want to easter egg every single request, it can be difficult to track down which individual handed off the data to the commercial service.
I was not implying that digitizing from satellite imagery was necessarily going to provide the same quality for parcel boundaries, I’m not sure how one would even determine parcels from imagery. It was more that depending on the specific needs of the citizens they could collect the specific data they needed.
There have already been comparisons of Ordnance Survey data to OpenStreetMap data showing high accuracy of OpenStreetMap Data http://povesham.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/openstreetmap-and-ordnance-survey-master-map-–-beyond-good-enough/.
This sure points out the wide void between the some data creators, and some of the data consumers. At $102,366 one can only guess Tempe figured no one would buy the entire dataset and instead buy just a few tiles. Still that price is way to high.
Rough economic times are making public enties look at themselves and their operations in different ways. And while the economy is said to have grown a little bit last quarter, the real hit to city and county governments will be next year.
http://www.semissourian.com/story/1585025.html references the 33% cut to the per-parcel reimbursement for Assessors in Missouri to maintian parcels. That is money that in a lot of places funds (in part) the mapping functions within Assessors Offices. That cut is not only for next year, it is immidiate, for the balance of 2009. That is the type of thing that may cause some to think again about data distribution policies.
The problem I have with “cost recovery” is that it shouldn’t enter the equation at all. Either you are required to maintain accurate data or you are not.
Budgets are tough for all, not just local governments. But Tempe was selling this data for these prices (I assume) during the good times as well. In the end all it is is a second tax on citizens to rightly get data they should have access to.
The only reason Tempe set their prices this high was to make sure no one could have access to the data. In turn citizens of Tempe have no way to verify their government is doing a good job.
James, I agree with the position that individual citizens should have free, non-commercial access to the data that they as taxpayers funded. What are your thoughts, though, on entities (individual citizens or collective entities) that re-sell the Tempe data at commercial rates? Shouldn’t the Tempe taxpayers benefit in this instance also by getting money back into City coffers from these sorts of sales? The commercial re-sellers presumably make a profit on their sales (otherwise their business model is somewhat flawed)– which are also taxed as well.
Rudy Stricklan, RLS
Tempe “shares” their data in Microstation. Unusable by most people.
What I want from Tempe is two things. My ability to take parcels and other information and add it to OpenStreetMap and second to distribute the data on my own website in standards formats so that it is more available to anyone.
The problem with Tempe trying to recover costs for commercial entities is this would restrict my use of the data for personal use. The only way I’ll drop this is if Tempe gives me all their data and I’m free to do what I want with it.
As for commercial entities, they’ve already gotten Tempe’s data. They either paid Tempe (I doubt it) or they created it on their own from other sources. This means that the data isn’t as accurate as it should be and unlike cities giving away their parcels for free, Tempe’s parcels are most likely very inaccurate. With companies running analysis on this less than correct commercial data, Tempe is probably getting a raw deal with the output.
I’d wager Tempe ensuring that Google, Navteq, Tele Atlas, OpenStreetMap, First American and others having the best data for the city results in better services for those who live in Tempe and those who want to come here to spend their money.
I’m pretty much assured that Tempe’s benefit of releasing the data without and restrictions would give the city a better return on investment because no one would pay over $100,000 for an area as small as Tempe in the first place. Just routing people around the city more accurately is savings enough.
James, see my previous post about Tempe’s resale to a local utility. That utility is just north of Tempe, so you can probably figure out which one it was. That $180K was in real dollars, not energy credits. 1990 dollars, as a matter of fact. So your comment that no one would pay $100K for a city as small as Tempe is not factual.
Your comment about the inaccuracy of Tempe’s data is also not correct. Parcel boundaries were COGO-computed to PLSS control. The precision was 0.01 foot, the accuracy was randomly checked in several hundred positions and found to be within 0.5 foot. It is a cadastral reference that was generated by surveying professionals, and has stood the test of time for almost 25 years. Tempe paid a premium for that conversion at the time (in excess of $10 per parcel for 40,000+ parcels), and their ability to generate fees for commercial uses says to me apparently the data must have been worth it.
Bottom line: I agree that you as a private citizen should be able to get the data for free and use it non-commercially. I’m afraid that the Arizona Revised Statutes don’t agree that your giving the data to Open StreetMap is a non-commercial use, however. It isn’t Tempe that needs to be chastised, it’s Arizona’s statutes.
Rudy Stricklan, RLS
Rudy,
So Tempe can “sell” me the data for $5 with a commercial license that would allow me to use it how I see fit. The ARS is an excuse, not a limitation. The only limitation of the commercial license is the cost for the whole city $100,000.
As for Tempe’s accuracy, you missed my point. I’m sure their data is gnat’s ass. But since no one can afford it, they create it themselves. Rather than using Tempe’s great data, we see poorly created data in its place. Google didn’t pay Tempe for the parcels, they paid some other company that most likely created the data in a sweat shop. This means that unlike the data locked up in Microstation, the data people are using for analysis is flawed and Tempe citizens pay the price.
I really have a problem with Tempe generating fees on this data. Does the Engineering department have to run a ROI next time they want to improve the system? Their purpose is not to “break even” on their work, Tempe government is to serve citizens. Selling data at these prices is clear that the Tempe Engineering department is not based on reality.
“The ARS is an excuse, not a limitation”. James, you are correct. The ARS permits commercial rate re-sale of commercial data, it doesn’t require it. However, it isn’t against the law in Arizona to charge such rates, as it is in California.
Tempe set its pricing for data sales in the early 1990′s, and was actually figured out on a (at the time) logical basis. It has not been adjusted for recession woes.
Whether or not it is beneficial to the greater good is the fundamental question here, and I’m all for exploring that to a logical conclusion. How about we approach Tempe on a mutual basis? You can respond offline, and then we can start a new thread based on discussions with the City.
Rudy Stricklan, RLS
Great, another backwards state. One more reason to never do business in Arizona.
I think that the thing making this discussion different is the fact that the market is not setting the price. The public entities seem to be figuring out “x†for their shortfall on budget and attempting to close the gap by selling data. Ultimately though, the data will be collected whether or not the public purchases data, so there does not exist the natural motivation to make a better product, or to out compete another vendor.
@Randy
I’m curious, you really think they’ve made anything back on this? I guess one local utility and some stupid assessors buying this data is probably all they’ve sold. Still, if they’ve made back their investment, why not allow the community to build on the data?
Right, control. The engineering department requires control or people might be wise they haven’t done a think in 20 years.
I like the idea of a geo-boycott for Arizona. GITA is going to be there next year. I was thinking of going since it is so close to where I live, but if this is their attitude, why would I go to GITA?
A boycott of GITA? How would that help? GITA is an organization that PROMOTES data sharing, reuse, interaction among geospatial organizations. If anything, we should rally at GITA. Maybe, a panel discussion topic just created itself.
If the City can generate even more revenue from commercial sales after they’ve made their investment nut, somehow this is a bad thing?
I’m also confused about your comment on survey control… is that all part of a conspiracy plot also?
The issue, again, is sale of digital data to individuals for non-commercial purposes. Having the right to sell a product to entities that re-sell it at a markup generates additional revenue to the City directly and potentially in the form of sales taxes. This is basic capitalism, but I realize that’s a dirty word in some circles.
Rudy Stricklan, RLS
It is a bad thing because that isn’t what cities should be doing. Concerned about revenue from data sales? They are using it as an excuse to not share data with anyone.
What is confusing? Tempe has great data that they don’t share with commercial providers. These commercial providers won’t pay these prices for cities data so they create it themselves. Do you think they put as much effort into it as Tempe did when they are concerned about national or global scales? Of course not, so people who use that data have less accurate data than they could affecting results of their analysis.
If Tempe shared the data, then the quality would go up and the benefit to the city would be greater than a couple sales a decade. Unless of course Tempe Engineering is only concerned about Tempe Engineering and in that case the city needs to clean house.
Basic capitalism? That would be giving the data out free for private citizens to do a little innovation themselves. Tempe is selling data at prices to stifle innovation in the city.
Startlingly enough, I do believe that Tempe Engineering’s primary mission is to… Tempe Engineering and its charge to manage certain elements of the City’s utility infrastructure. However, I wouldn’t fret too much that this self-centered view has hampered the Department’s innovative deployment of its geospatial data (albeit in the depressing MicroStation format). In concert with a local architectural firm, the City was just awarded one of EPA’s four national awards for smart growth management in 2009, with its Tempe Transportation Center. The TTC is a multi-use green facility that is not only a transportation hub, but also a gathering spot for the community (http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/awards/sg_awards_publication_2009.html). In the early 1990′s, Tempe successfully litigated against neighboring Sky Harbor airport to the tune of a few megabucks, using the GIS data to construct an audio-visual presentation that demonstrated the noise levels at various spots in the City. The Tempe Town Lake was also designed with the aid of that closed-format MicroStation data as well. Maybe ignorance of true innovation as promoted by non-engineers has been bliss for Tempe Engineering.
I’m beginning to suspect that perhaps you’re tweaked because Tempe didn’t realize that the Emperor of the GIS blogosphere was asking for their data, and they deigned to refuse. They have been using this system, with great success, since 1988. You’ll have to excuse their provincial attitudes in not realizing how giving the data away will directly profit Tempe’s citizenry considerably beyond the benefits they have already enjoyed. I’m not convinced the assertion that authoritative data, released to the open-source world at large, necessarily improves it. But that’s just me as a measurement professional hick from Arizona. Benefits of GIS have been available long before the crowd-sourced data zealots came on the scene, no matter how well-intentioned those folks are.
If you had any legal standing in your battle with Tempe, you’d have a chance with the pitchforks and torches mob approach, and I’d support it as I did Bruce Joffe in the Santa Clara County issue in California. As it is, you’re just being antagonistic with a City who doesn’t share your sense of altruism. Dang Tempe and its insular use of its own GIS data!
Brent Jones and Bob Samborski have suggested/offered a national forum to discuss this issue. I’d love an open-forum discussion format between GITA members and ACSM surveyors… it would flush out a lot of opinions (and canards).
Rudy Stricklan, RLS
Ah so this isn’t about open data, but you being a surveyor and us being a zealots.
Amazing how so many cities get this around the world, but your buddies down in Tempe and by extension you don’t.
You want to protect your little world with COGO and other irrelevant concepts. That has nothing to do with what James was asking.
Data for him to present at a GIS Day event.
I googled RLS and it returned Restless leg syndrome. I had no idea Rudy…
Rudy and everyone else.
Why make this personal?
Anyway, I never requested to data from Tempe because the restrictions on the data made it impossible. I can’t just take off work and waltz down to the Tempe Engineering department and plop down $100,000 for their data.
Rudy,
Does this mean you’d not want cities to join in the national map? It is unfunded of course, but really there isn’t much cities have to do other than provide their data in NSDI/FGDC standards.
If it was basic capitalism, the City would let the market decide the value of the data and then not produce it if there was no market. You are conflating to very different things.
Government should be open, but I realize that’s a dirty word in some circles.
Cities competing against private industry? Jesus does that scare me. Of course maybe that is why they are selling it for $100k. No competition. Monopoly is more like it Rudy.
Cities shouldn’t be in the data selling business anymore than private industry shouldn’t be in the government industry.
I actually hate Arizona more than I did before. What a bunch of hicks who live there (no offense James).
I eagerly await the further privatization of local governments. Bring on the private firemen, police forces, and data. That there is just one local government to choose from in a given geographic area is by itself undesirable – lets bootstrap up our own and let the
votersconsumers decide. I think our police force could bring in a tidy profit by some means, given proper incentives.I don’t like the idea of boycotting GITA’s conference; its not them, nor their policy. I like the idea of using the GITA conference to organize a forum and generate some awareness of this to the State of Arizona. Anyone interested?
what is this thing called Microstation that you speak of???
it’s easy to beat up on the city employees, but focus should probably be placed on the city commission.
too often it’s not the gis’s staff, assessor’s staff, or the public works’ staff, but the local elected who call these shots.
put pressure on them in a public forum with the question “why is your city charging its citizens for data they alread pay for with taxes?” be sure to call the local paper too. (these days they’ll probably fall back on homeland security as their excuse.)
but, in general, i figure you got to go after the head on these sorts of deals.
Homeland Security isn’t an excuse because Tempe is selling the data. They aren’t making that claim, but if they did as long as Osama had $100,000 he could have the data.
don’t forget you must document your intented use. so if you say, “i need it for terrorism” they won’t sell it to you, even if you have the 100K
sad.
I’ve been watching this interaction with great interest. As a non-profit educational association dedicated to promoting the use of geospatial technology – including the sharing of geospatial data – GITA has a vested interest (an obligation, really) in promoting such discussion. We have a few spots left open at the upcoming April conference for exactly such ‘hot topics.’ I would like to invite anyone interested in making a presentation or participating in a panel discussion to contact me and we’ll do our best to make it happen. In addition, we are planning to conduct another in our series of Geospatially Enabling Community Collaboration (GECCo) workshops in the Phoenix area in January. These are workshops designed to augment local/regional collaborative efforts and are focused upon defining barriers to collaboration. Effective data sharing (or lack thereof) is a primary topic. (see http://www.gita.org/ciper/gecco.asp for more info and final reports from the previous 5 GECCos.) The GECCos are offered at no cost to user stakeholders in the area. We will also offer a follow-up GECCo Roundtable during the conference on a complimentary basis for those interested.
Bob Samborski, Executive Director
GITA
Hopefully I am not going to repeat points that were already made here and there are a lot of them. It seems to me that if a city makes a onetime upgrade to cogo it’s parcels and whatever database upgrades they may be making to go along with that, that those costs should not be passed on to either commercial or non commercial GIS end users. The vast majority of those parcels will undergo little future change.
As for maintaining the parcels after that, well as far as I know it is pretty standard practice in the modern age to require new developments to be submitted as cad drawings that meet certain standards so they are easy to import in to the existing parcel “fabric”. COGOed tax lots are mostly a benefit for those folks that have to maintain them. Plus any costs necessary to incorporate those parcel changes are added to system development charges that the developer pays.
For many GIS purposes you don’t really need all that great of spatial accuracy for parcels. For example for routing or making a map of all the foreclosed properties. If a property line is 20 feet off it is not going to be a life or death matter. Even if it was a life or death matter say for a 911 call should the GIS community bear the cost of that? Most GIS shops put a disclaimer on even cogo tax lots saying that they are not to be used as survey grade data like a fight between you and your neighbor about where he put his fence.
Which brings up the really odd way the City of Tempe chose to sell the data. If you only needed a quarter mile area then probably you are really wanting to make the kind of decisions that you need plat maps for. Most county governments have those available in a scanned format for free.
The other piece is that database piece which really does need to be accurate for most GIS uses. The thing about this is that there should be no need to pass on these costs to GIS users because the assessment and taxation offices have to maintain this information anyway, always have and always will.
This leaves the trivial cost of disseminating the data which is what it got boiled down to in California.
I’m a little late to this tread, but I think what I’m seeing here is something we all are dealing with around the country.
A city/county/state trying to hold on to the data. Not because they really care too much about “recovering money” but because they don’t understand how things work these days.
Despite what others have said above, Microstation is not an open standard and one we should be sharing data in. CAD is really bad about open formats so I’ve got no real suggestions to them about what to do about this.
OGC would probably tilt toward GML or CityGML for open standards which would be cutting edge for a city like this (assuming they want to change). I know vancouver offers DWG (or soon will) on their open data portal so I suppose it isn’t that much out of the question for Tempe to share theirs as some Bentley format. But the problem is that you’d limit your sharing with companies that had this format which is definitely a subset of even the CAD marketplace.