Far North District Council, New Zealand

Far North District Council increases speed and accuracy

Background:
From 2003, New Zealand’s Far North District Council (FNDC) worked to upgrade its infrastructure and core applications. The next phase of this upgrade was to create maps that integrated with the new core property administration system and make them available to all staff members.

Primary Objective:
The primary objective of the project was to increase the speed and accuracy of response to internal and external customer spatial enquiries. This was achieved by providing Council Intranet users with a browser based GIS system that interfaces and references information stored in the core property information system (Pathway) and other available spatial data sources.

Software Solution:
FNDC implemented a solution that used GeoMedia and GeoMedia WebMap combined with an interface between Pathway and Geo Media WebMap developed by Intergraph New Zealand. FNDC uses Dell servers as supporting hardware.

This solution is maintained from a central location and distributed over the Council Intranet, so it is available to staff in the service centres and some i-Site locations.

The data managed includes LINZ data provided quarterly in parcels, property data from the property administration system, and services data plotted and provided from within the Council.

Intergraph New Zealand provided implementation services to compliment the in-house expertise of the Council staff.

Business Benefits:
There are over 100 members of staff using geospatial mapping technology. All the maps and nearly all functions that were available on stand alone, non networked PCs only are now available to all staff who access to the Council Intranet. When the maps are adjusted
updates are distributed to all staff instantly which helps to promote efficiency, especially when responding to customer enquiries, by ensuring all staff are referencing the most recent maps and data.

In addition, the implementation of GeoMedia and GeoMedia WebMap has resulted in a reduction of maintenance of the stand alone machines that once provided the core maps to Council staff members.

Future Developments:
As a result of the successful implementation a number of enhancements are being considered:

Identification of Iwi tribal boundaries on available maps
Introduction of a Council maintained plotted address layer
Introduction of New Zealand Post locality boundaries to available maps
Identification on the maps of properties that are subject to resource consents
Introduction of the district plan boundaries to the map
PDFs for LIM - introduce this functionality
Improvements to Hotspot Report to include information on property

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