hello and welcome to another edition of commissioners corner my name is shelly freeland eddy and i am your commissioner for district three i'm here today with our playing director mr steve kovar and today we're going to talk about some new and exciting things going on at the city in terms of planning nano you may think we know about planning we live in this city we drive on the streets there is a member of planning but there's a lot that you didn't know mr carver welcome it's not nice to be here and we hear you know so many things about traffic and congestion and all the things that you know customers and residents of our city you know don't love the best about the fact that we have a living growing city but there are a lot of things that are going on in planning and there are some tools that we have at the city's disposal that the larger community might not be aware of we've heard this term called g i s mapping what is that you know it's called g geographic information systems and it's a special computerized mentoring system in which you can incorporate any kind of information possible for example if you're interested in a particular area of the sitting with the population that is if there are new projects in process how much additional population they new infrastructure might need to be put in place and maybe new services provided to the community as i understand it there are a lot of things that this map can be used for that are not necessarily related to planning can you talk about some of the other tools that this mapping system can be used for sure let's say for instance maybe the city is either interested in buying or selling property what this system can do is that then a fire really all the characteristics of that property not only  property lines but what infrastructure is in place water sewer lines whether any easements that you know might inhibit the property so the city could look at say maybe four or five different properties from information is provided by and we're we're expanding all of its capabilities one of the things i think what really interests the average citizen is that we will be able to you know click on an individual piece of property and find out every piece of information a manageable about their property you know what the zoning is one of building permit was issued maybe one in addition was added on to the house so the average citizen can click on a property and really find  history of that property in addition to that let's say a citizen is interested in you know the condition what use is that have been approved throughout the city we can actually take that layer of information and produce a map that shows where all the conditional uses were proved in the city he talked about layering i want to get back to that you know as i was preparing for this segment you know i still am of the citizen that was learning about this g i s mapping system as a part of our commission responsibilities and we are going to be dating our form based code and that's when this concept of g i s mapping really became prevalent and i had to figure out ok what is this thing and what is it do so i use my own address in the system and it brings up this zonin classification the minimum front and the rear setbacks the lot with the maximum building high the minimum a lot area and i don't need a degree to figure out how to read it so can you speak to how user friendly it is yeah i mean it really is  simple you know the system can click on the property and it really would it would have been a fire all the rules and regulations that pertain to that property so let's say they're interested in buying a property and they want to build a really large house on their property you know with the information might say as well because of setbacks or merit in this or size of property maybe maybe you can't build that house on the property at the same time maybe you maybe that's sort of similar to say hey look i really can build my dream home on their property so it just gives them every piece of information for them to make a better educated decision on on that what they might want to do with that property ok so here's the layperson's question how do you get to the brain in the front page of the website there's a link to  because if you scroll down there's a section that's actually says maps you click on that and that will bring you into the g i s mapping system and then you can search where they were kind of information you're looking for one of the things that up up was pretty cool was that once you get into the area that you're looking at you can actually print that page and you can have that data that you can take with them whether or not you're going to look at a property or maybe you want to consult with their realtor or maybe you disappointed take it to a neighborhood association meeting so it was really exciting to me how user friendly and accessible and this information is free you don't have to pay an amount to get onto the website and you know be concerned that your information is going to some other place it's free is excessive ball and it's provided by the city exactly in that you have communities interested in the new construction and development activities in their area they can get that information from the site and take it to their next community meeting you know we've talked a lot about use of this map for planning purposes but i mean this is really something that every owner every resident can use you don't even have to own your property to be able to see what's going on in the house or live in it that's exactly right that's correct what else can we expect in terms of planning from your department or from the city because to me although this might be no standard practice for those there in planning i was really excited to see that i could access this information on my own and that i can really kind of keep up with what's going on in my neighborhood he certainly you can do that certainly know and as we move forward in the in the affordable housing initiatives and things like that one we can find ok where is it located then from that we can plan on maybe what are some of their locations that that kind  of kind of housing could be located we're also just kicking off a transportation master plan which is going to be a major effort over the next eighteen months which will really relate to what we think should be the different transportation code discussion you know we are getting questions from the community as to where you are at some point we're going to have a discussion as to what a current use is and what a proposed current use that begs the question as to whether there might be nine kind of forming uses can we use this map to figure out whether something will stay the same or a b maybe a non conforming you subsequently and you know for purposes of just tracking that how do we make sure that we have the most up to date information as it relates know we will we will be constantly our department which obviously we have a lot of lot of things going on a lot of information comes in both our department and development services will be plugging this information into the system so that it's kept up to speed and that really is the same too for let's say utilities if there's a new utilities project you know they will be plugging them into the system so that someone might say ok what's that what's going on down the street they can go to th be able to click on something to figure out whether or not i'm in a flood zone or not yes yes you know whether they're in it whether they're in the house and living there already or if they're looking to purchase correct you know they will be able to give them information and say oh wow you know maybe  looking at how do we use all of our tools to make sure that we have the most up to date information possible exactly and i think our whole emergency operation system this is just more information provided to them to help them out during those situations well i'm sure we'll have another conversation with you as we get into more discussions regarding the code in planning thank you very much for that hearing this afternoon and we look forward to having more information from you look at it thanks very much i look forward to it as well thank you we are going to take a short break and then we're going to put this d i s map system in d welcome back and thanks for continuing to view this program we are continuing our discussion of the advancements of the city of sarasota in relation to the use of  g i s maps and many of you probably didn't know that we had g i s maps and so we're here to talk about it and how it can impact your life not only as a plan our as a builder but as a resident in the city of sarasota and so in terms of talking about what we're doing i data accessible to the public to make a better more informed you know citizenry who has a citizenry as well as a more efficient government functions how do you think that this technology helps us do things better here this if the well we're in the process of trying to digitize everything right so you know before you know you're carrying several you know booklets of paper trying to figure out what the correct answer is for services income comes to the city and has a question instead of doing that you know if everything's on the same page in terms of being digital easily accessible it's current you no longer having to refer to old historical information it's it's it's right there present in your face on a on device on a laptop on a computer or on a you know an i pad or i phone it's it's right there it's current it's modern and it's easily accessible for them to make the correct decisions faster and we finished a conversation with mr kovar our planning director on our last segment talked about how we were just getting into hurricane season and how this technology can help us be more prepared and get information to our citizens quicker i thought it would be appropriate for you to one show us where to find the g i s at our website and what we can use it for so i guess you can kind of talk to us about how to get to the site and kind of walk us through you know what can this system do in terms of getting us ready for hurricane season sure  maps so if you click that link it will take you to the home page of our system and from here it's you know it's a little overwhelming there's just so much information you can find but all of these here are different applications happening maybe finding a park in your house if you you know you you haven't been to before you want to find out the amenities there you can continue clicking on and you'll see you know you can see information about where the city is proposing to put sidewalks to improve our sidewalk connectivity pla where we have public art available in the city let me stop you they are those links that you're referring to are those part of the g i s system are those just additional places on the site that helps us get that in from these or this is all every single one of these is an individual a but so we're closures in detours basically what this allows a citizen to do is see current information from as of the day they're looking at it up to a month in advance so as we're seeing where closures and sidewalk closures and and obstructions are happens as times passing by farmers markets open downtown the following day farmer's market is gone but all of main street is is closed for the morial day parade ok and you can see different information is happening around town you'll see that they're doing a water main replacement right along paine park on the side there is you'll make it easier to understand you know what's going on fifty go back to that and click on that web basically you can click on them right on the map and tell you how long the road is scheduled to be closed scheduled to yes obviously you know construction projects sometimes go longer sometimes not that often but sometimes they are finished sooner and you if you get the information about the start date and date what type of project it is what it's permit number is this one happens to be a city project we're replacing a water main and if available we have a document that shows you know what the project's plan is supposed to be where they're where they're anticipating roads closed detour rerouting traffic all that's readily available and easily accessible for the citizenry if you go to the front page of the website and click on maps all of these will take you to a specific application that's using g i s i thought about parks sure i'd love to do so and same place that we've been there's an application called park finder so if you wanted to you can hop on here this is you can access it through a phone you can access it through you know a computer i pad  and what it does it brings up cities you know it brings up the city and it shows where all the parks are city maintained county maintained and north watertower parkway actually split county and so it can do if we zoom in let's see we'll start with city hall fifteen sixty five first street so this could be you know a residential address when you do this it will automatically find the location and identified all parks within a set specific distance that's great so within city hall there's roughly ten or so parks within city hall and what if you want to know what amenities are in that park trip so right off the bat you can click on any one of these parks and find out what the amenities are so it will take us to go as the park for instance click on gillispie park to break up its address it was into it you know tell you what days it's open and if there's a phone number need to call as well as all of the amenities that are available apart scroll over these and i'll tell you what's there really beneficial but we found ten or so parts within our search radius but we don't want to have to go through each one of these we want to find a part that has the specific amenities that we need we can say that i want to i want to filter there's a button down here  know as to what the address and what the hours are correct ok so we know how to find it correct ok let's move on to starting season and we are going to be in the midst of hurricane season and talking about road closures and evacuation hurricane season starts june first we're hoping to have it done middle of june and what it will be it'll it's a there's no application very here readily available for citizens so it will show information on where your evacuation zone is as well as what your flood zon is what the evacuation routes are in the city where the available shelters are about the path that we will get there so the first application will be more for informing citizens preemptively before storm happens this is how we can better inform our citizenry there will be an additional application that kind of keeps them informed during the storm or immediately afterwards show them we are going to be portraying information to this is in every hour we will be updating the information it says what the capacity is of the be you know has a lower capacity or has a lower occupancies they look at that was probably available just to help citizens figure out where they should probably go in you know an emergency situation right and you know sometimes we have a lot for them to go to and just get it an operational awareness on what's happening in city during a major event right there to have enough to worry about in terms of their family their kids or dogs you know parents the last thing they need to worry about is where they need to go right we're trying to make sure that they at least have a there is informed as they could be about where they can go to be safe and let's say in the unfortunate situation you know a family does have to evacuate and they go up north they're you know go out of state to whatever and they are trying to figure out what they're not it's safe to come back whether or not there's power in their neighborhood how does the system help that so that will be the third series that will also be deploying more hopefully middle of june what that one will show so immediately after hurricane we do a initial road assessment we go out and we basically drive the roads and document which roads are either flooded that you can drive by flooded or not passable maybe there's a downed tree or down sparking wire to document all of that and then the third application will show which roads are passable which roads are not which is beneficial obviously for folks coming back into town trying to get home to see if their homes safe we let them know hey this is the route are probably going to have to take place well during the last storm season and we got a lot of calls from relatives that lived up north that were inquiring how the weather was in our area and they want it as nailed down data as possible and this will be a tool that people who are out of town can also access to figure out what's going on in the local community as current chip on any device phone tablet computer and we are all so we're communicating with f t l so hopefully try and get information from them in real time in regards to  worse more power outages are being reported well obviously we're at the limitations of the data they can provide to us but we're hoping that it's granular enough to provide citizens with information in terms of where power outages are as well as hopefully maybe where they're going to be fixing them in the days after the storm right can we go back to the maps and talk about the new flood zones and whether or not how do you find out whether or not your address is within a flood zone  well we don't have that up yet but where would we go once that's upload it it would just be right here so you can cycle through all of these if you like on the front page so there's there's three main apps three main buttons you can click so more or less purpose or also set of just having a single one that just has a whole wealth of information we try to put just the relevant specific information in there for you so you're not overwhelmed when you when you access it and can you go into the map and actual layer information from the map itself and we can you go to the map let's say i want to put my address and the actual map and i wanted to layer some information maybe at my address i want to know how many parts and how many of those user within approximate my address yes i saw that there was some function and maybe i'm saying it wrong is that i think snipping is the term where you could actually put additional layers on to the map correct can you show us how to get back to that if people want to add more information from the g s map itself shirt so what we different sources of information and we're providing them some of them may not be visible because we've defaulted to turn them off you can always turn them back on and i don't know if you wanted to cover this to show citizens how they can understand and recognize different changes that are going to be happening throughout the city recommended in the form based code what i understand is that you can put in a particular area and it can show you what the current zone is and what the proposed changes share can we bring that up yes we can so as a citizen you can look up your address in the top left here to city hall for instance from five hundred sixty five first street it will recognize your address and you to where your parcel is and then so this is city hall here so if you click on your parcel you have a wealth of information that comes up so you have what the current zoning is as well as what the proposed  oning would become because you know that zoning classification changes names but what's really important to citizens is the differences between them when it comes to setbacks and you know building heights things like that so you're able to  f you also can find information in terms of what the permitted frontage is of the buildings are allowed to be how much impervious surface needs to be covered of a lot occupant how much of the lot surface can be covered by an actual building to get pretty pretty granular detail information for citizens if they want to find it well from a private home owner i have a question as to whether or not there is a private development that's going on around my neighborhood click on applications or cycle through them here but you'll find one that is cold and circular development and so if we open that one just to kind of find information about development happening downtown this is actually beginning in the process of expanding beyond the downtown core area and it's going throughout the city as a whole and even point you know you can you can click on one of these and find information about it so will do i don't know the mark can information about who the developer is who the architect is what the estimated construction costs where we are at the project status as well as information about its proposed eleven storey building thirty five thousand square foot of retail  how much restaurant or commercial office there is going to be as well as you know picture kind of show you what the design plan of the construction is going to be cut all of this is readily available to the public and from that lin you tell us if if road closures are resulting from that development and you have to go to another link so we can add that in it's not in there by default but we can certainly have it it's a good idea because that's a lot of times warning you know what's the impact to me from this development you know yeah a way for citizens to put their name at their name to a request to put contractors directly in communication citizens instead of having just pay into a fee they're able to provide citizens with trees with a certain distance with same neighborhood their living as i understand it you can both donate trees and request freeze from the website correct i don't know about donations yeah we have another link where the individuals that want to donate trace the neighborhood associations they can actually say i have trees available for download these and so hopefully those two sites will get linked to the city so it's something to look into and what we've learned so much today about what this amazing site can do we decide to recommend to our residents take a little bit of time you know get your coffee and go to the city's web site in this you know click on the map put your address and display going to play around with it in to see how valuable this tool is you know we've talked about worst case scenarios with hurricanes but there's a lot of wonderful things that this site can be used for and for any questions you can