Bill Wetzel – Regional Account Manager
Tioga County, PA: Modernized Land Records
Tioga County is located in north central Pennsylvania, where the region is lush with trees and the landscape is dissected hills and valleys. Wellsboro, the County seat, is a quaint town with a historical main street/downtown area. Keeping pace with their needs, the County Assessment office has diligently developed and maintained a set of hard copy tax maps to support assessment operations.
In the late 90s/early 2000s, the County realized the need for GIS and progressed with a digital mapping program for support their operations. The digital mapping effort was a simple conversion of their existing tax maps, so any inaccuracies that existed in the tax maps were perpetuated into the digital map. As needs and demands increased, GIS Coordinator Scott Zubek and Assistant Chief Assessor Joshua Zeyn realized that the existing GIS would not hold up to their rigorous needs for accurate maps and information, which would be necessary to support the implementation of a new Computerized Mass Appraisal system and support the demand placed on County resources because of the Marcellus Shale boom.
Working through Esri, Tioga Co joined up with Sidwell to begin exploring their needs for a modern land records implementation.
To start the process and to provide an idea of what a modern GIS would look like, Tioga County worked with Sidwell to complete a detailed pilot project. It was agreed that Sidwell would complete the pilot project by using original source documents and deliver the data in the latest version of the Esri Parcel Fabric. The pilot project gave Tioga County a look into what their data could really look like and it really paid off. For the first time, the County was able to visualize their ownership, specifically regarding boundaries associated to road right-of-ways and the parcel data verified against the CAMA database.
Within the pilot project, the County first realized that the data was much more accurate since it was constructed from original source documents. For example, one area mapped showed where houses and parcels were on different lots within the Tax/CAMA systems and one of these houses/lots were up for delinquent sale. When Sidwell completed the pilot project, it was discovered that the house/lot was associated to the wrong parcel and was incorrectly up for delinquent sale. County officials realized there was a desperate need to clean up their records and modernize their operations.
To start the project off, Sidwell captured over 60,000 documents (almost 200 GB) of maps, plats and documents that were used to construct the countywide parcel layer. With any GIS/mapping project, it is best to start with as much information and detail as possible. Through the source documents provided by the County, we positioned over 2,500 GPS control points in State plane coordinates. This information was very helpful in tying down locations, establishing a framework for nearby parcels and building the Parcel Fabric data model. Several other key, and interesting, source documents were the “Bingham Maps” that mapped many of the original parts of the County.
Many original source documents, like the maps shown to the right, were used conjunction with recorded surveys and plats. These documents helped Sidwell identify, locate and inventory all ownership properties within the County.
The County granted Sidwell access to their on-line document management system, which made research easy and convenient. Once every parcel was mapped, a Sidwell mapping professional merged the data into the Esri Parcel Fabric to create a seamless ownership layer, creating the resulting parcel layer.
For all parcels, Sidwell placed an accuracy value based upon how that parcel was constructed. This will be used by the County to establish the accuracy and reliability of parcel data in the future and for defending assessment values.
The final countywide Parcel Fabric database will be delivered later this Spring. The Parcel Fabric will be included in the County’s implementation of the Local Government Information Model and integrated with the new CAMA administration system. To streamline their parcel maintenance effort, Sidwell staff will be on-site to perform hands-on training to maintain their investment and ensure a smooth transition to the Parcel Fabric. The County will also be implementing Sidwell’s Parcel Adminisitrator software to assist with the generation and management of parcel numbers. Part of the streamlined effort will be to dynamically join the new parcel data and the CAMA attributes. Currently, because of legacy administrative systems and lack of modern solutions, Assessment and GIS maintain duplicate attributes in CAMA and within a highly customized parcel table. By leveraging and implementing modern GIS and RDBMS solutions, the County will be able to take advantage of simple geoprocessing routines to keep this data current and be easier to publish across the jurisdiction.
The County is eager to begin using this data and modernize their operations.