Assessors in Genesee County say the county's online GIS Map is an essential part of their jobs and up-to-date aerial photos are needed to help them correctly evaluate properties.
The county assessors' association sent a letter to the local legislature recently asking that the county continue to fund aerial flyovers on at least an every-three-year basis to keep the maps up to date.
The problem for the county in tight budget times: The cost is at least more than $65,000 and a nine-year plan would cost a total of $301,000.
The cost would increase significantly if the flyovers took place every two years, providing more up-to-date information.
On Wednesday, the Ways and Means Committee agreed to send a letter to the assessors and inquire if the towns, villages and city that are asking to continue the service will help pay for the service.
In their letter, the assessors said the aerial photos help determine land classifications.
"It is used to view the overall imagery of a parcel that is not available to view from the right of way," they wrote. "Outdated imagery makes it much more difficult to see any changes that may have occurred to a piece of property ... aerial imagery helps in discovering improvements to a piece of property that otherwise would not have a value."
What about google maps?
What about google maps?
Matt, that was my first
Matt, that was my first thought when I read this! With all the satellite imagery out there this just doesn't make sense!
Google Maps is satellite
Google Maps is satellite imagery and doesn't show as much detail. It's also only updated every five years.
While it would conceivably be possible to create all the same overlays with the GIS system, that would also be a lot of expensive programming.
right now google is more up
right now google is more up to date, as far as imagery, than GIS is. Maybe they could use that for a few years and then think about going back to flyovers.
Google doesn't have property
Google doesn't have property lines, watersheds and wetlands, historical reference points, layered history, etc. and it would be very expensive to hire a programmer to weld all the county's data into Google maps.
So they want to spend a hefty
So they want to spend a hefty chunk of money to fly over peoples property in hopes of finding a reason to take more taxes from them in case they may have improved the property in places they can't see legally from the street? Will the extra money they collect offset the money they spend? And what do they anticipate seeing? A new shed? a bigger vegetable garden? I don't get it and it just sounds creepy to me.
Is the cost just for flyovers
Is the cost just for flyovers or the whole GIS system? If its just for flyovers to spy on people then use google earth for a few years as all the other data will still be available via GIS.