History of GIS in the City of Fort Lauderdale

For many years the City of Fort Lauderdale discussed the implementation of a citywide GIS. These discussions stemmed from a great need to automate, exchange, consolidate and integrate geographic data from multiple sources throughout the City. Between 1990 and 1993, the City assembled an ad-hoc committee comprised of City staff from the Information Systems Division, the Engineering Division and Public Services Department. The purpose of the committee was to identify potential GIS applications that could be used by various departments.

City of Fort Lauderdale and Florida Atlantic University GIS Partnership

In 1994, the City approached Florida Atlantic University’s (FAU) GIS Lab for help in establishing a citywide GIS. Then in April 1997, the City approved an innovative partnership between the City and Florida Atlantic University Geographic Information System Laboratory (GIS Lab), housed in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. As an educational partner, Florida Atlantic University has been charged with assisting the City in the following areas: (1) produce GIS implementation action plans for each City department, (2) develop and maintain the Citywide GIS Base Map, and (3) provide GIS training for City staff. FAU has played an instrumental role in developing a Participatory Framework as part of the City’s implementation plan.

The Participatory Framework

The City, with the help of FAU, developed a participatory framework that allows the implementation of GIS applications throughout all City departments, while balancing and integrating all the different efforts into a single citywide perspective. The roles of the key players and groups of this participatory framework are described below:

• Executive Review Committee (ERC): The ERC consists of management level individuals from each department. The ERC serves as the oversight committee of the entire citywide GIS project. This committee is responsible for policy decisions, approval of plans and resource allocation, resolving special policies and/or change related issues, setting milestones, establishing inter-local agreements, and identifying funding sources.

• Technical Review Committee (TRC): The TRC consists of technical staff from all departments. The TRC establishes the design strategies to implement the distributed, enterprise GIS for all the departments. It also provides recommendations regarding base map management, future database designs, data sharing exchange protocols, application development, and procurement for GIS related services.

• Citywide GIS Group: The Citywide GIS Group serves as the GIS liaison between the City departments, ERC and TRC, FAU, and other external agencies. The group is responsible for:
  
  
  1. Reporting to the ERC regarding the status of the citywide GIS efforts.
  2. Chairing the TRC.
  3. Evaluating potential data sharing capabilities.
  4. Developing procurement procedures for GIS services.
  5. Acquiring fiscal support.
  6. Educating City staff.
  7. Identifying potential applications.
  8. Identifying internal and external funding sources.
     
• Departmental GIS Teams: Each Department Director assigned a GIS Project Team to work with the FAU GIS Lab to identify potential applications, to provide information about existing data flow, articulate short- and long-range projects, and to assist in identifying computer needs.

The City's GIS Model

The GIS user model adapted by the City empowers City staff with "hands-on" use of GIS technology. Participating departments have professionals who posses GIS software on their desktops. These individuals are trained to use ArcView, ArcGIS and custom web-based GIS applications for the purpose of fulfilling their professional duties. This promotes self-sufficiency within the various departments and, ultimately, maximizes the benefits of GIS. At present, at least 130 City staff members regularly use some form of GIS to assist in carrying out their job functions.

GIS users throughout the City are supported by a core GIS group consisting of a citywide GIS coordinator and two GIS specialists. Housed in the City’s Information Technology Division of the Administrative Services Department, the GIS Section is primarily responsible for the daily operation of the City's GIS as well as providing centralized GIS services to City staff. More specifically, the duties of the GIS Group include database management, the administering and oversight of GIS related contracts and out-sourced projects, developing customized applications, and performing GIS mapping and analyses that exceed the ability of non GIS centric staff.

The GIS Section has created several customized user applications with more being developed for future deployment. The following is a description of custom user applications that are currently being used by City staff.

Customized ArcView 3.x Applications

• GIS Mailers/Homeowner Notification
  The"GIS Mailer" application was originally created for the planning section to assist in creating homeowner notification letters of proposed zoning changes. The application has evolved from it's initial version to a second version called GIS Mailers 2.0, which allows users Citywide to create mailing lists for not only residential properties but also commercial establishments. Mailing lists are generated using either a property layer or data extracted from the City's Utility Billing System. The analytical functions available in GIS Mailers 2.0, along with the resourcefulness of staff, has fostered creative uses for the application ranging from simple address inquiries to estimating the cost of construction projects. Today, GIS Mailers 2.0 is the most widely used custom desktop GIS application Citywide.
• GIS Zoning
  This customized ArcView application was developed for the Zoning Counter and the City’s One-Stop Shop desk. It represents a quick and efficient way of locating specific land parcels by address or parcel identifiers, identifying a parcel’s zoning code, and determining whether a parcel is in a flood zone.
• Public Service/Customer Service Aide
  The Public Service Customer Service application enables Public Service staff to quickly respond to customer request for information pertaining to such things as schedule of garbage and recycling pickup and the availability of sewer service. Over the years the application has been enhanced to include the retrieval of Utility Billing customer information.
• CrimeView
  This application was created by third party developer and enhanced by the City's GIS Section. It is being used by the Police Department to track and analyze crime patterns throughout the City. CrimeView is used to map data extracted from the Police Department’s Record Management System on a daily basis.
• Code Compliance Tracker
  Another ArcView 3.x application that was built in-house, Code Compliance Tracker allows Community Inspections Supervisors to produce reports and maps of data from the Code Compliance Database. Reports, queries and maps can be generated for each Home Owners Associations (neighborhoods) and Commission Districts. The analytical and mapping functions of the application provide an efficient way of presenting information related to Code Violations, properties with liens and those delinquent on fines.

Customized MapObjects Applications

Automated Vehicle Locator (AVL)
The City's AVL application was developed by an outside vendor and is managed by the City's Police Department with the assistance of the central GIS Section. At its most elementary level, the application allows Public Safety staff to track the location of the City's Police and Fire-Rescue vehicles on a map. Vehicle locations are transmitted back to a server at the Police Department and logs are recorded in a database. The application also sends the GPS xy locations of each Fire-Rescue vehicle to the City's Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system thereby enabling CAD to perform closest unit recommendations.

Customized ArcGIS Applications

AGISMAPP
In 2000, the City hired an Engineering firm to field verify and GPS locate features in its water, sewer and stormwater utility networks. The effort yielded an extensive collection of GIS data layers for all three networks. As part of this effort, the ArcGIS Maintenance Application (AGISMAP) was created to update the geoDatabase housing the utility layers. AGISMAPPS functions include converting AutoCAD and survey AsBuilts into the GIS utility networks, providing a mechanism to share data between GIS and the City's Computer Maintenance Asset Management System, and providing staff with an automated means of creating and printing utility atlases. Because AGISMAP is an ArcGIS extension using an ArcInfo license, it includes numerous analytical tools.

Customized Web-GIS (ArcIMS) Applications

FLIPPER
The Fort Lauderdale Infrastructure Public Property and Environmental Resources (FLIPPER) application was created to grant staff access to utility created from the field inventory effort. This highly customized ArcIMS application is intranet enabled and, therefore, only available to City staff. The robustness of the application allows complex network analyses such as network tracing and valve isolation. Staff in various City departments use the application for a variety of uses including permitting for new development, building new water and sewer infrastructure, conducting maintenance on existing utility features, fielding inquiries from utility customers, and providing information describing the City's utility infrastructure.

Property Information Reporter
A description of the Property Information Reporter is located in the "Create Maps and Queries" section of these web pages.

Improvements and Construction Projects Locator (ICP Locator)
A description of the ICP Locator is located in the "Create Maps and Queries" section of these web pages.

Brief Technical Listings of Software and Data

GIS at the City of Fort Lauderdale has the following technical characteristics:

Operating Systems

• Microsoft Windows.

Desktop GIS Software

• Environmental Systems Research Institute's (ESRI), Redlands, California; ArcView 3.x.
• ESRI ArcGIS (ArcInfo, & ArcView).
• ESRI MapObjects.

Workstation GIS Software

• ESRI ARC/INFO 7.2.1.

Web Enabled GIS & Server GIS Software

• ESRI ArcIMS.
• ESRI ArcSDE.

Mobile GIS Software

• ESRI ArcPad.

Other GIS Related Software

• Bentley Microstation.
• Intergraph MGE.

File Formats and Databases

• ESRI Shapefile (SHP).
• ESRI ArcInfo Coverages.
• ESRI SDE geoDatabases, SDE feature datasets, SDE features classes, and SDE raster layers in SQL Server.
• Business data from various Relational Database Management Systems (SQL Server, Oracle, and Informix).
• Business data in dBase IV (DBF) format.
• Aerial images in Tag Image File (TIFF) format.
• Aerial images in LizardTech MrSID format.

Map Projection

• State Plane Coordinate System, NAD 83 with 90 Adjustment.

Map Units

• Feet.

Map Accuracy

• Accuracy varies among layers.