Some local, some state, some not at all. Remember when Google first started and the
one liner about them was “if you have it, we want it”. That’s the story for parcel data too.
There are lots and lots of cities and counties that share parcel data with attribution on a regular or periodic basis. Some update continuously others provide
quarterly or annual updates. A recent
survey of parcel producers found there are approximately 6,500 parcel producers
(cities, towns and counties) in the US (see Parcel Data - Who Builds it) and of
these nearly 70% provided at least viewer or REST Service access to their data
and a smaller percentage (around 50%) provided free download and/or open data
access. Those that do provide open and/or downloadable access cover almost 80%
of the US population and parcel count.
As awesome as digital parcel data are there are certainly
understandable reasons why all parcel data is not shared for
everyone to have.
The vendor made me do
it or proprietary formats - It’s not the mapping formats, it’s the
attributes. Many local governments are
tied into real estate tax system (or CAMA) software that has the attributes locked
up in either a difficult to extract or expensive to extract data
structure. In a few rare cases the
mapping and attribution is managed by outsourcing and the local government
doesn’t even own it’s own maps or data.
Once bitten, twice shy
- Many local governments have experienced sharing their data with an
application or a customer only to be criticized because the supplied parcel
data did not meet expectations. As
examples “Why doesn’t this data indicate which homes are owner occupied and
which are rented?” “I wanted to see a recent inspection on condition of the
structures, where is that information?” I checked this data against my iPhone
and the coordinates you have are wrong, I am calling my councilman.” “Where is
the mortgage amount in this data set?”
Many of the concerns downstream users have can be explained if the data
producer has a chance and if the recipient wants to understand. Unfortunately, there are too many instances
where the criticism gets widely distributed and the explanation (metadata) not
so much.
Show me the money - This
has several variants including - We paid
good money for this; we are not going to give it away and I need this revenue
to fund my office. These are all,
well mostly all, good reasons. There are
many jurisdictions that run short of allocations and automation is not enough
to make up the shortfall. In the Parcel
Dial Tone, I mentioned the need for more rural counties and under budgeted
offices in particular to charge for data.
Sadly data sales are not likely to be a sustainable revenue stream. It’s just the way it is. Consider the path imagery and addresses and
elevation and building footprints and so many other data sets have taken. As technology advances the data becomes more
widely and more freely available. This
is not ridicule or undervalue the resource needs of local assessors and parcel
mappers. The needs are real; we just
need to find more sustainable and effective funding sources.
It’s mine - Much
like parenting sometimes it just comes down to you can’t go to the movies because
I say so. Period. Sometimes this
rational is clothed in privacy concerns or “what are you going to do with it?”
concerns (see once bitten, twice shy). Sometimes
it’s just that so much personal dedication and commitment has been put into the
data, it’s hard to let it go. It’s hard to not take ownership of it. I have always thought that parcel data is
personal. It’s the most personal of all
locally maintained data sets. The data
producer’s fingerprints are all over this data set and having a sense of
ownership is certainly understandable.
Who shares parcel data? The most recent detectable trend is
more and more parcel producers are sharing, especially cities, lots of
cities.
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