The Town of Olds will be entering into an agreement with the Oldman River Regional Services Commission that will allow the town access to a comprehensive geographic information system (GIS).
Council decided at its meeting on Feb. 25 to become one of 41 municipalities to use the system, which is centered in southeastern Alberta. The system allows participants to access different types of data that is then tied to individual properties in town.
"There is layers of information in the GIS and overtop of this is a photograph of the Town of Olds that superimposes overtop of all of our land parcels, so we can go in and look at the big view of Olds or a small view of Olds and go right down to the individual parcel level and get information on that parcel, so it's a great repository for a whole bunch of information,î Norm McInnis, the town's chief administrative officer, said.
As an example, McInnis said if a developer wanted to tear down a house on a particular lot and build a new one, the system would allow town staff to find the lot on the system and check where the service connections are, the lot dimensions and whether a certain-sized building would still meet the setback requirements.
"It's a pretty powerful tool,î he said, adding it replaces information that was formerly stored in several different binders. "We can do all of that now with a couple clicks of a mouse as opposed to the old paper method.î
A similar Central Alberta project was undertaken by Parkland Community Planning Services (PCPS) working with member municipalities in 2007, but was put on hold when the City of Red Deer decided to pull out of the organization as a member a couple of years ago, said Chris Ulmer, director of PCPS.
Ulmer said once Red Deer was no longer a member, the focus for PCPS changed. But he said it remains a goal to offer a GIS system in Central Alberta to as many municipalities as would want to participate.
"It's something we think is incredibly (powerful) to regional municipalities. It's certainly part of our long-term goal,î he said.
"... it's a great repository for a whole bunch of information."Norm McInnis, CAO, Town of Olds
