East Point planning staff demonstrate GeoPointe portal and development-design tools

Tere Mohammad, the City of East Point’s new GIS coordinator, demonstrated the city’s GeoPointe mapping portal and related tools at a City Circles meeting, showing how planners, developers and residents can view zoning, permits, floodplains and proposed development scenarios.

The presentation focused on practical features: ArcGIS Online as the city’s back end (branded in the presentation as “GeoPointe”), Google Earth and Google Earth Pro for 3-D visualization and street view, FEMA floodplain layers, and a design-generation tool (called “Delve” in the presentation) that produces building-layout options based on zoning parameters such as floor-area ratio, setbacks, green space and parking. Tere Mohammad demonstrated generating multiple design alternatives for a parcel and exporting designs for presentation tools such as SketchUp.

Why it matters: City planners said the portal will make land-use information and departmental data more accessible to residents and potential investors. Kimberly Smith, planning and community development director, said the city’s planning map is maintained on a 20-year horizon and is updated on…