It was a bill like no other.
When members of Wa:ter (Wetland Alliance: The Environmental Response) recently requested data from a taxpayer-funded study the city commissioned in 2010, the cost they were quoted by city staff left jaws dropping.
The data included new LiDAR (Light detection and ranging systems) mapping that can show land elevation with precision, as well as orthological aerial photography.
The first estimate the group received from the city for its request was $375,500 plus HST, said Warren Bell, president of Wa:ter. The second estimate for additional data was $126,000.
“The whole bunch was $506,375.”
Although the group entertained ideas the city might be purposefully putting up road blocks to their request, city staff said the problem is that the fee-for-service bylaw was established when gigabytes of data weren’t envisioned. The charge established in the original bylaw was $50 per megabyte, so a 75-gigabyte file generates a whopping big bill.
“So that’s our bylaw, and I can’t do something that’s outside the bylaw,” said Dale McTaggart, the city’s director of public works and engineering.
Bell said the group wants the data because “the detail it gives you can allow you to do a flood simulation. You can see all the low elevation points that would attract a flood event… You can’t do that with anything else as the detail isn’t as great.”
He said the data would be used to prepare a detailed flood-plain risk/hazard analysis on the Salmon River delta, which would provide a more precise prediction of the effects to surrounding land from building on the flood plain.
Carl Bannister, the city’s chief administrative officer, subsequently crafted a new bylaw to better reflect today’s digital world. It went to city council Monday where it was read a first, second and third time.
The new bylaw charges $200 “per tile” – or specific section of city mapping – for LiDAR data and $100 for orthographic imagery. The bylaw also states that “all purchasers must enter into an agreement that prohibits the resale/distribution of digital data and/or information.”
It also decrees that digital data will not be free, regardless of the requester, except to consultants working on behalf of the city on municipal projects.
The final policy is that the city will provide the orthographic imagery as soon as possible to Internet mapping sites.
“We’re going to make it available to Google and Mapquest so people can view data for free… That should happen pretty quickly,” McTaggart said.
The study cost the city $100,000, he said, and the city’s fees in the new bylaw are mainly to compensate for staff time getting the data ready to provide to people who request it.
The study was commissioned to update the old ortho images of the city, McTaggart said.
“We accumulated enough budget so we could do both ortho and LiDAR. Ortho is the image that shows all buildings, and LiDAR shows the contours and elevations.”
