As a geographer with the U.S. Census Bureau, I spend my days working with geospatial data from a variety of sources. So when my role as secretary of the West Meadows Metropolitan District required map information about the infrastructure of the district and surrounding neighborhoods, I naturally turned to GIS. Unfortunately, until the recent release of planimetric data from DRCOG, I had little option but to hand-digitize much of what I needed. My requirements were not quite engineering-level data, but more detail than what public data (like TIGER) could provide. I was faced with hand digitizing sidewalks and road edges, greenways, and rights of ways. For a small district, this is not a huge task. You might wonder; why does a special district need such things?

Metropolitan districts in Colorado often provide municipal services for unincorporated areas that might normally be provided by a city. In our small district, we are responsible for all landscape maintenance and facility upkeep along the right of way for West Coal Mine Avenue. This includes landscaping, sidewalk concrete, street lights, path lighting, sprinkler lines, turf, trees, flower beds, and park benches. The board of directors is responsible for executing and managing annual contracts for maintenance services and repairs. Without an accurate map of the district, it is very difficult to keep track of resources and improvements that have been made. This is where planimetric data in a GIS will prove invaluable for the West Meadows Metropolitan District. We can now plan, monitor, and evaluate work in a more efficient manner. We can produce work orders and request for proposal that include accurate maps of the area in question. This leads to more concise work descriptions and more clearly defined contracts. We can analyze distances, area measurements, and determine which housing units might be affected by trenching for water lines for example. 

 
Creating such data in-house would be cost prohibitive for all but the largest districts. By providing open-source planimetric data to public, DRCOG has changed the face of managing special districts forever.

DRCOG launched the new Denver Regional Visual Resources (DRVR) site in October 2015 and has spent the first quarter of 2016 on a roadshow to introduce it to planners, GIS professionals, community advocates, and media in the region.

We're hearing that the site is useful for grant writing, seeing local projects/programs in context, understanding trends for better planning, and for making presentations. Some of our workshop attendees said:

If you'd like for someone from DRCOG to reach out to your agency about DRVR, please us know. We are happy to show you around the site!

For more information on any of the topics mentioned in this newsletter or if you have an idea for an article, please contact DRCOG Information Systems Manager Ashley Summers at 303-480-6746 or asummers@drcog.org