Geographic Information Systems have been in use in various larger municipalities in Northern Ontario for the last five or six years

Geographic Information Systems have been in use in various larger municipalities in Northern Ontario for the last five or six years. They have been implemented to increase efficiencies in capital planning, zoning, permits and maintenance, as well as planning in the areas of Health, Education and Lifestyle. While smaller municipalities could also realize the increased taxpayer service benefits of GIS, implementation for small municipalities has been cost prohibitive.

Blue Sky Net attempted to initiate a regional GIS project through the Provincial GeoSmart program in 2003, but was un-successful. In the fall of 2005 five local municipalities approached BSN regarding revitalizing this project. Towards the end of 2005 FedNor announced major programs for Broadband Infrastructure and application development, and contracted BSN to deliver these programs in the Districts of Nipissing, Parry Sound, Sudbury, Manitoulin and Algoma as well as some townships in the Muskoka District.

All five of the original municipalities as well as six adjacent municipalities partnered in a GIS Strategic Plan to define their objectives and priorities as they related to GIS. Since this time, additional municipalities have indicated an interest in joining the partnership to implement a regional GIS solution. Blue Sky Net has taken the lead in this project and is providing valuable project coordination/management services on behalf of the now 17 partnering municipalities. The partners are currently finalizing a Memorandum of Understanding to guide the implementation of Blue Sky Municipal Geographic Information System Partnership.

Municipalities in Northern Ontario are faced with the double challenge of satisfying a need for data and information from a wide variety of requesters (internal staff, councillors, investors, business people, officials from other levels of government, the media, social service organizations, the general public) and doing so from a widely disparate collection of data sets (tax rolls, zoning records, inspection data, various local inventories, etc. etc.). The proposed Geographic Information System will simplify both of these challenges. Through a process of integration and automation, GIS will set up and deliver a set of “views” that customize the presentation of information to the specific needs, interests and capabilities of different groups of users. On the supply side, it will provide tools to integrate and store disparate data sets, allowing them to interact in a mutually supporting and synergistic manner.

There are several advantages to this approach. Municipal information will become more accessible and more useful. Integration will deliver powerful tools that allow for comparability and synergy. Data collection and storage will benefit from the rule of diminishing costs the community will develop a single large and ever-growing system composed of numerous integrated data sets that are shared by all stakeholders. Each new application will be built on the infrastructure of the previous applications. Once a base system is in place and being maintained on an ongoing basis, partners such as municipal officials, health units, conservation authorities, emergency workers, utility companies, real estate agents, economic developers and others will share in and draw from the same integrated data sets, thereby not only saving on costs but enhancing the functionality of their applications by invoking comparisons and associations among different data sets that would be impossible if the data were configured in separate silos.

The solution selected will organize the data of the partners to provide an integrated and multi-functional view of all types of municipal information. Using a Web-based application, the service provider will handle data organization, cross-referencing, management, storage and transmission. The system it establishes will provide this data instantaneously to any of the multiple access points through which it flows out to end-users. While requests for information can take a variety of forms as they flow into various access points, each point will be served by the integrated data set in a manner that is responsive, secure, accurate and highly cost-effective. The proposed system will:

1. Provide municipal officials and staff with a tool that will support and enhance their own activities on behalf of the community and ratepayers.

2. Provide local officials and staff with a “role specific” module and interface to the system

3. Provides local officials and staff with a tool through which they can manage their own documentation;

4. Respond to public demands for better access to government information more efficiently;

5. Reduce the staff time required to handle general inquiries;

6. Integrate with established and new/edited Municipal GIS or other digital/spatial data;

7. Act a s a data repository to address the needs of the Provincial Asset Accounting requirements;

8. Act as a data repository for the Ontario Good Roads initiative;

9. Support Economic Development and Tourism promotion;

10. Facilitate partnerships with community organizations and display data sets from and for various organizations;

11. Offer a single-entry system for updating and sharing data such as business directories, economic information, membership lists of business groups, etc.,

12. Use a convenient Web-based application that will be accessed from the Municipal corporate website, reflects the look and feel of the corporate website, and can be accessed by either Dialup or Broadband;

13. Provide certain taxpayer self serve options such as zoning changes, building permits, well and septic location, infrastructure enhancement plans.

The Blue Sky Municipal Geographic Information System Partnership has already started to lay the groundwork for future cooperation and collaborations. The integrated GIS will allow a greater amount of information sharing amongst the municipal partners and will lead to further collaboration on the use of technologies and resources which will result in enhanced economic viability for the region.

Municipalities that wish to establish a GIS system have to choose between developing a system “in-house” or contracting for GIS services from an Application Service Provider (ASP). On average, “in-house” models cost 60-70% more than the integration provided through an ASP - without any advantage in either service quality or functionality. During the Strategic Plan consultation phase of this project it was unanimously agreed that municipal staff do not have the time, expertise nor facilities needed to build a system in-house. Also, we believe over the long term there will be savings by using the ASP model when compared to the spending of staff salaries on building its own system in-house. For this reason, the partners have chosen CGIS to implement an ASP approach to GIS. CGIS will provide the partners with the full range of GIS capabilities set out in the Partner Community’s GIS Strategic Plan that was developed. In doing so, it will save the Partners’ the significant costs associated with setting up and managing an equivalent in-house capability. At the same time, CGIS and subcontracted associates will help the municipalities develop data sets that are easily integrated into the system. CGIS will train municipal staff in the management and maintenance of these data sets. And they will train municipal staff in how to use these GIS capabilities to achieve savings, enhance functionality, or improve service.

Ultimately, the project will include application service provider services, systems licensing, equipment purchasing, installation, data development and training of all municipal staff in the day-to-day use of the system. The training is necessary to bring the skill set of staff to the level of their counterparts in other areas of the province. The training will include all municipal staff including but not limited to administrative staff, public works, planning, building staff and economic development officers where applicable.

The Blue Sky Municipal GIS Partnership has received funding from The Northern Ontario Heritage Fund and FedNor. Most of the funding will be used to offset start up costs. The framework of the GIS is currently in place with municipal staff training in its use. Municipalities will now be working with CGIS, Blue Sky Net and other providers in collecting aditional data sets to be added to the GIS. These layers will be added in accordance with the municipalities priorities.

For more information contact Jeff Buell at 705-476-0874 x205.