Cuyahoga County committee approves $2.59 million contract for street‑level imagery and lidar to support property appraisal

Cuyahoga County committee members voted to move a resolution authorizing a cooperative purchase with Cyclomedia, a street‑level imagery vendor, to full council for second reading. The five‑year contract is for an amount not to exceed $2,588,000 and covers deployment years and hosting to support the county fiscal office’s property appraisal work.

Tom Fisher, GIS administrator for Cuyahoga County, told the Committee the system will deliver 360‑degree, high‑resolution images and lidar measurements of county parcels. “They’re going to drive 7,100 miles taking images of all of our 565,000 parcels,” Fisher said, describing the planned countywide capture and how the data will include positional coordinates and range measurements that allow desktop measurement of structure dimensions.

Lou Gentile, chief commercial appraiser in the Cuyahoga County Fiscal Office, described the system as “a high end sophisticated, GIS technology” that will help appraisers refine valuations. Gentile said the imagery is color and high definition and that appraisers will use it as a supplemental tool to validate field observations: “You always think, you know, you have a question now you have the ability to just go back back, look at the property again and say, oh, yeah, I remember, you know, I remember this house.”

Committee members pressed county staff on how the imagery will affect valuations and on privacy. Councilman Casperi raised concerns about whether the new imagery would increase already contested values, saying, “the appraisal process has been so freaking inaccurate over the short period of time.” Fisher and Gentile responded that the product supplies measurements and images to support appraisers’ judgments rather than automatically changing values. Fisher said, “It just shows them,” when asked whether the system would “rank” properties.

Fisher and Gentile described privacy measures and data access limits. Fisher said every product includes facial obfuscation and license‑plate blocking on the public‑facing view: “So you do you don't see the actual general public walking if they're out. It will also be blocking license plates.” Fisher acknowledged raw sensor outputs exist but said blurred versions are what will be available to county users and the public: “The images facial images and license plates will be collected in the raw data, but what they do is is they run through ... it actually blurs that and escapes it.” He added the county would not have access to unblurred raw data.

County staff outlined planned timing and uses. The capture drives are scheduled for 2026 (triennial update) and 2029; the product will also be hosted in non‑drive years. Fisher noted the system can be used for pre‑incident planning by fire, police and EMS and that the county will permit access to certain civic partners so long as those secondary uses do not interfere with appraisal work. Gentile said the system includes change‑detection tools to flag differences between imagery captures and county records, which can reveal unrecorded demolitions or additions.

Committee members also discussed cost and procurement. The contract uses GSA pricing and is paid from the real estate assessment fund. Fisher said the $2,588,000 figure is spread across the five‑year term, with the actual drive years costing roughly $1,100,000 each and off years about $110,000 annually for hosting and administration. The committee voted to move the resolution to full council for second reading; the motion carried with the ayes prevailing.

The committee did not adopt any policy changes during the meeting. The contract authorizes procurement of services and hosting; appraisers and the Fiscal Office retain responsibility for valuation determinations under existing county processes.

Votes at a glance: Resolution 20250285 — motion to move to full council for second reading; motion made by Chairman Schlepper; second not recorded by name in the transcript; outcome: approved (ayes have it).