Putting Mat-Su on the Web

MAT-SU - With the help of a $30,000 grant through the Alaska Cadastral program, people seeking information about properties in the Mat-Su Borough will soon be able to find much of that information online.

In September, the borough assembly approved and appropriated a grant to the borough's information technology department. The grant will pay for hardware and software that will allow IT staff to redraw borough plats and put them in a format that will allow assessment information to be accessed online.

The task is sizable -- more than 65,000 parcels of land will be included in the mapping project -- but IT staff are on a timeline to complete it by March. Not every parcel of land within the borough will be accessible after the project is finished, but much of the land along the road system, in the Lake Louise area and in the more populated areas of the borough will be painstakingly mapped out and displayed, along with pertinent tax information and other details. Borough staff are still deciding what information should be provided and what should, for security reasons, be omitted from the online database. "Because of the sensitivities with 9/11, they're considering in administration what they want to do," explained GIS director Mark Matson. "Just how easy are we going to make it for someone who has wrong intentions for the data?"

Other municipalities around the state, such as neighboring Anchorage, Matson said, had similar programs running, with ownership information available online, but removed the information after security concerns resulting from the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The borough's project will fit into a statewide goal developed two years ago, Matson said. At the 2000 Western governors' conference, governors from 18 states across the western United States agreed to put an emphasis on providing mapping information -- information that can be shared among those states as needed to assist with land management tasks.

"We're one of the first states to start implementing it," Matson said. The borough is one of seven grant recipients across the state. Similar projects are being undertaken in Kenai, Juneau and Fairbanks.

In the long run, borough staff hopes the added accessibility of the land information will ease the burden on the borough's assessment department staff. Currently, the two public-use computers available for tax information in the assessment department are often in use, and staff spend much of their time on the phone answering questions and helping people pinpoint information -- data that will now be available online.

"Users can get down to parcel level and get assessment information," Matson said. Along with the basic assessment information, data such as which fire or road service area, community council and assembly district will also be available.

Some of that information is already available in compact disc format -- seven CDs that hold tax information on different geographic areas of the borough are now available, and Matson said they are becoming quite popular with Valley realtors. Although the information is public, there is a price tag attached that covers the cost of burning the CD, as well as the man-hours put into compiling the information in the first place. The CDs run $75 each, Matson said.

The beauty of putting that information online is that, not only will it be provided for free, the information can be instantly updated as property is sold, subdivided or reassessed. An added benefit is that the information will be used and reused numerous times within the borough building. Matson said different layers of information will be developed, including trails maps, roads, information about water bodies and other important details.

That work, along with enhanced satellite mapping services that will chart the topography of many areas of the borough to one meter's variation, is slated for the near future, Matson said. He's hoping this grant will help the borough toward a smoother mapping system that will benefit borough staff and residents by making information more readily accessible, as well as linking the borough into a statewide mapping system.

"One of the end goals is to have not just a borough Web site, but a Department of Natural Resources Web site that … tries to bring these different data sets together," Matson said.

He explained that the federal government owns approximately two-thirds of the land in Alaska, and the state owns nearly another third. A very small portion of land is owned privately, and a portion of land is owned by Alaska Native corporations. Although the borough tracks private holdings within its boundary, the state tracks its own holdings and federal holdings, such as those held by the Bureau of Land Management, are tracked through different, separate data systems. The end goal Matson spoke of would bring those data systems together.

To ensure accuracy, a second grant is on track for assembly review next month. The $22,000 grant would fund a six-month AutoCAD technician position. The person hired to do the temporary work would be tasked with deep-cleaning the tax maps, Matson said.

"Since the maps were first created 15 years ago, the process of inserting new subdivisions has created duplicate lines," said Erick Johnson, a GIS technician working on the project. "It's created confusion as to which line is the correct line."

The funding represents a growing awareness of the importance of accurate mapping on nearly every facet of municipal governance. Matson said while mapping, in the past, was primarily used for assessment and platting purposes alone, as the borough grows, people are beginning to realize that mapping can be important for everything from making sure the proper easements are set aside for recreational trail use to helping map out the most effective snow removal routes and ensuring emergency personnel can quickly pinpoint the location from which a 911 call was placed. And with that added importance, those involved with the Alaska Cadastral project are confident more resources will follow.

"They expect more money in future years to address cadastral mapping issues," Matson said.