ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT

Date: January 22, 2001
Author/Local: J. Mark/7987

RTS NO. 01705

CC File No. 1189

Council: February 20, 2001

TO:	Vancouver City Council
FROM:	General Managers of Community Services, Corporate Services, and Engineering Services
SUBJECT:	VanMap for the Public

RECOMMENDATION

That Council authorize staff to make VanMap accessible over the Internet to the public in their homes and offices with certain data limitations to address Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy and risk issues.

GENERAL MANAGERS' COMMENTS

The General Managers believe that making VanMap available is consistent with the City's desire to make City government information accessible to the public.

COUNCIL POLICY

1) On July 26, 1990, Council approved the following communication objectives as City policy and as a guiding framework for the development of a City Communications Program:

1. Vancouverites should know about and understand pending City decisions through participation and comment.

2. Public involvement should occur in an atmosphere of openness and trust; where the purposes of consultation are clear; and where the rights and obligations of the public, of City staff, and of Council are fully understood by all participants.
3. Vancouverites should receive clear and accurate information about any City programs, service or regulation which affects their lives or livelihoods.

4. City information should be delivered through media which effectively attracts the attention of those who need to know in language which they can readily understand.

5. The City should be a helpful, accessible, consistent, unintimidating and human source of information; and those served should always feel welcome.

2) On November 9, 1995, Vancouver City Council approved a City Communications Strategy which proposes a long-term communications strategy for the City with an objective of involving all Vancouver residents in their City government. The strategy re-iterates the objectives identified in the 1990 communications policy and identifies the Internet as a key communication enabler.

BACKGROUND

Much of the contact between the public and City staff is concerned with property-related issues. Examples of this contact include confirming addresses, applying for permits, inquiring about property and infrastructure, and determining the location of City-owned assets. Over the past few years, information from the City's property-related computer systems has increasingly become accessible to the public; a notable example is the Community Web Pages. Making data publicly available both provides a higher level of service to the public and reduces, to some degree, the questions that come to staff from the public.

Staff believe that making VanMap, the City's web-based viewer of spatially-related data, available to the public via the Internet in their homes and offices is a natural step forward in the City's ongoing direction of making data available and providing better service. Doing so will allow, over time, Community Web Pages and QuickFind (an online directory of staff and organization information) to integrate with VanMap to provide more usable information to the public; staff are currently working towards this objective. This report identifies the issues related to making VanMap publicly accessible and seeks formal authorization from Council to proceed.

DISCUSSION

In September, 1999, the first version of VanMap was made available to City staff. VanMap is a web-based viewer of geographic data and was delivered as part of the City's implementation of a suite of spatially-based business applications. VanMap is now in its fourth version with each version providing access to more data and functionality. Examples of the data now accessible through VanMap include:

property and zoning boundaries, addresses, ownership, and assessed values
water, sewer, and other utility information
aerial photographs
public places, parks, and non-market housing
business license system information including business and dog licenses
Statistics Canada socio-economic data.

There are many other types of data accessible through VanMap in addition to those identified above. Functionality available to staff includes calculating distances and areas, identifying and creating labels for addresses within a specified notification area, plotting maps for specified areas and generating reports. To assist staff in their use of VanMap, extensive on-line help and training have been created.

Before making VanMap available to the public, several issues were examined for each type of data and functionality being considered for public access. These questions are relevant both now for determining what will be in the first public release, and later for determining what will be in subsequent releases.

(i) What limitations exist due to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act? The City's Freedom of Information Officer was consulted to determine what limitations the Act would place on the inclusion of data in public VanMap. The key data types that cannot be made available are property owners' names and information on dog licenses and certain kinds of business licenses. The release of this information is seen to be an invasion of privacy or otherwise contrary to the spirit and intent of the Act. This information will be deleted from the public version but will continue to be available for the staff version of VanMap.

(ii) What data and functionality will be useful to the public? It is important that data and functionality being made available in VanMap be useful and not confusing to the public. To determine this, discussions were held with staff who interact directly or indirectly with the public. While no data items were rejected for this reason, some functionality was judged to be potentially too confusing because no training will be available.

(iii) What are the impacts on staff workloads of making data publicly available in VanMap? There is a recognition that staff may receive a number of questions from the public as a result of data being accessible through VanMap. These may result from the public asking questions about data they have not seen before. However in time, there will likely be a reduction in calls as the public becomes less dependent on staff for data. The strategy for dealing with this issue is to make data available incrementally and slowly so that staff can better gauge how VanMap is being used and what questions it generates before more data is made available. We will also ensure, through training and communications, that staff are aware that VanMap will be made public so they can be familiar with the data that will be accessible.

(iv) What data and functionality should be restricted because their inclusion could expose the City to risk? Some items are not being included in the public version of VanMap because of other risk factors. For example, Risk Management has requested that data from non-City utilities such as BC Hydro and BC Gas not be included so as to avoid any potential liability questions. All users of the public version will be required to explicitly accept a disclaimer statement approved by Risk Management and Law which relieves the City of certain responsibilities for the data; this disclaimer will be similar to what is used on paper maps containing similar information.

(v) What are the impacts on data sales as a result of making data publicly available in VanMap? Over the past several years, the City has been selling GIS data with limited success. Most of the sales of GIS data involved specialized requests and amounted to approximately $10,000-$15,000 annually. In order to better gauge a GIS data marketing program, the City retained a consultant to survey and evaluate what other local governments are doing in regard to the sale of GIS data. While the number of cities providing data is limited, three conclusions can be drawn:

Some cities in the United States provide GIS data to the public with no or minimal cost, often over the Internet, believing that the public has already paid for the creation of the data through taxes.

The market for GIS data varies from city to city and is often difficult to determine.

Sales of data are often based on the city adding value through reconfiguring or reformatting the data for a specialized use.

Potentially, there may be some limited revenue loss as a result of making GIS data available on the web, however those parties wanting larger quantities of data or data in manipulable form may still want to purchase it. Alternatively, the City may sell data by adding value if there is a good business case to ensure that revenues exceed costs. Staff will continue to consider alternative methods of marketing data as opportunities arise after the release of public VanMap.

Examples of data that will be included are block and property lines, streets, public facilities, zoning districts, and hundred block indicators.

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

VanMap is already available for staff. Assuming that the public version of VanMap continues to be a subset of the staff version, the costs associated with making it available to the public are relatively small. The estimated one-time costs of these is as follows:

VanMap hardware (server) $15,000
VanMap software $11,000
Training $ 2,500
Consultant fees (technical assistance) $ 2,100
Total One-Time Costs $30,500.

Funding for these is provided in existing GIS budgets and no new funds are required.

The estimated annual ongoing costs are:

Hardware maintenance $1,500
Hardware replacement $7,000

Software maintenance $1,500

Total Annual Costs $10,000.

Funding for these is provided in existing GIS budgets and no new funds are required.

COMMUNICATIONS PLAN

The VanMap Team will work with Corporate Communications to publicize VanMap to the public, and to communicate to staff about this project. This will help ensure maximum exposure to the public and adequate preparation for staff.

CONCLUSIONS

Providing public access to VanMap over the Internet will improve public service and reduce the need for our customers to travel to City Hall or to contact staff via other means to obtain basic geographical data. Given the discussion above, it is recommended that the City make its GIS data available to the public on the Internet with certain restrictions due to Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, liability, and other concerns.

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(c) 1998 City of Vancouver