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City staff show new GIS system, public viewer targeted for August
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Summary
City planning staff demonstrated a newly implemented Geographic Information System (GIS) that maps the city's water, sewer, zoning, parcels and other layers and said a public-viewer map is expected by August or September.
Jacob Choker, the planning technician who is serving as the city's GIS coordinator, demonstrated the city's new Geographic Information System during the Planning Commission meeting and said staff are preparing a public-facing map for release in late summer. The system currently includes water distribution, sewer and reclaimed water lines, parcel and zoning layers, several assessment districts, community facilities district boundaries and aerial imagery spanning 2007'to'2024. Choker said the city contracted Pro West for professional services and licensed Esri software for the platform.
The presentation explained why the city pursued a local GIS rather than relying solely on county systems: the county's data are useful, Choker said, but a locally maintained GIS gives city departments more specific tools and workflows. He told commissioners staff have integrated Ventura County assessor parcel data and the county road dataset to correct base-map errors in newer subdivisions.
Choker described tools already in use by city teams, including a weed-abatement tracker for the Fire Department that logs letters, inspections and follow-ups, and a water/finance viewer prototype that the finance director, Deborah Caveletto, is using to support borrowing and bond-rating work. He said Pro West told staff the city's aerial imagery archive is unusually extensive for a community of Fillmore's size and that another jurisdiction is already reusing the city's weed-abatement tool.
Choker said the public viewer will allow users to toggle overlays such as zoning, parcel attributes, FEMA flood zones, fire-hazard zones and assessment districts; clicking a parcel will eventually show the property's zoning, general-plan designation, assessment-district membership and hazard-zone designations. "GIS stands for Geographic Information System," Choker said during his introduction, and later described how the system will help contractors, developers and property owners. He estimated staff hope to publish the public viewer by August and, if not August, by September.
Commissioners asked whether county layers such as aqueduct or water-district boundaries would be incorporated. Choker said assessor parcel and county road data have been incorporated and that additional county layers could be added over time. He also said the zoning and general-plan overlays from the city's 1988 general plan and recent land-use updates are being converted into GIS format.
Staff described near-term items the team is mapping: updated general-plan maps, the new RMH-2 zoning district (recently reviewed by the Planning Commission), Heritage Valley Parks and the North Fillmore specific-plan area, assessment-district boundaries, and an updated fire-hazard map that staff provided to Pro West and expects to appear soon. Choker said aerial imagery in the system currently goes through 2024 and that updates occur on a roughly biennial cadence in the archive the city has, though he deferred to other staff about establishing a continuing imagery schedule.
Choker said the city manager's office is working to integrate GIS into grant administration for a homeless-services grant and the finance director is using the tool in analyses supporting bond-rating work. He also noted the city is developing a finance viewer for business licensing and water-billing records that for now will be for staff use but could be considered for limited public display in the future.
The presentation closed with a short live demonstration of the public viewer prototype showing general-plan overlay districts, parcel clicks that will surface parcel attributes, and toggles for assessment districts, flood zones and bus routes. Choker described the viewer as still in development and said staff plan a similar briefing for City Council plus social-media outreach once the public viewer is ready.
Ending: The Planning Commission did not take formal action on the presentation. Staff said they will return with the public viewer once data are finalized and will present the viewer to City Council and the public before it goes live.
