REPORT TO COUNCIL
SUBJECT
Title
Informational Report Regarding Bi-Annual Project Status Report of the GIS Services Program
Report
COUNCIL PILLAR
Deliver and Enhance High Quality Efficient Services and Infrastructure
BACKGROUND
The City has made significant progress in establishing an enterprise Geographic Information System (GIS) program. On October 29, 2019, the City Council approved an agreement with Arini Geographics for Enterprise GIS Consulting Services. The agreement was approved for an initial term of three years, with the option of one additional two-year term. Council has requested a bi-annual project status report of GIS services. This is the fifth report.
DISCUSSION
With location a common attribute across numerous city services and assets, the City’s Enterprise GIS Program is a framework of people, process and technology enabling geospatial and asset information across departments managed in a single system. Integrating this information and making it available to staff and the public enables operational effectiveness, data driven decision making, cross departmental and regional coordination, citizen engagement and transparency.
Efforts are focused on both projects and day-to-day operations as shown below.
Projects - Project accomplishments during this reporting timeframe are:
|
Project |
Current Reporting Period |
Next Reporting Period |
|
Enterprise GIS Infrastructure |
ü Completed |
|
|
Streets Trees Inventory |
ü Completed |
|
|
Integrated 2021 Aerial Imagery |
ü Completed |
|
|
Streets and Intersections Inventory |
In Progress |
Completion Planned |
|
Stadium Common Operational Picture Upgrade |
In Progress |
Completion Planned |
|
Citywide Desktop GIS Upgrade |
In Progress |
Completion Planned |
|
Parks & Recreation Assets Update |
In Progress |
Completion Planned |
|
Various Enterprise Asset Management Integrations |
In Progress |
Completion Planned |
|
Sewer Video Inspection Integration |
Initiate |
Completion Planned |
• Completed the upgrade of the City Enterprise GIS platform, software, and hardware. Significant technology improvements and an updated architecture ensure improved performance, cybersecurity, high availability, and business continuity, all of which better support real time transactional GIS. This GIS platform supports mission critical business integrations, such as permitting, 911 dispatch, public safety records management, document management, asset management, internally and publicly available applications such as infoMap and MapSantaClara, as well as story maps such as development projects and live traffic cameras.
• Completed the City of Santa Clara's streets tree inventory. Close to 18,000 trees along city streets, including trees growing on street medians and city property were mapped and measured. The location, an image of every tree, trunk diameter, canopy height and width dimensions were gathered. These are vital pieces of information for continuously assessing and proactively maintaining a thriving urban forest. Two separate trees GIS datasets were created, one for the Streets Division and another for the Parkways and Boulevards division. These data sets were integrated into Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) along with specific cartography (see sample below) for office and mobile usage. This is a critical operational tool that allows the respective divisions of the Department of Public Works to track each tree, its health, care needs, potential safety risks, as well as economic, environmental, and cultural value. This tree data is essential to developing an effective Urban Forest Management Plan and helps prioritize, analyze, execute, and justify future municipal forestry projects, including informing tree planting, managing invasive insects and diseases, as well as public education. As a 35-year Tree City USA designee and a 22-time winner of the prestigious Growth Award, the City of Santa Clara is committed to managing, preserving, and expanding its urban forest, and the GIS streets tree inventory helps support and accelerate that commitment.
• Integrated the 2021 high-resolution aerial imagery into the City Enterprise GIS Basemap, also available to staff and the public on infoMap 3.1 and MapSantaClara <https://map.santaclaraca.gov/public/index.html?viewer=regional> respectively. This new natural color image is the result of the ongoing partnership with the County of Santa Clara, together with most of its constituent cities and special districts. This is the latest addition to the multi-year high-resolution aerial imagery that provides top-down situational awareness to many City applications, from resolving City planning issues, to effective strategic and tactical public safety response, and streamlining assets mapping and inventory for more efficient infrastructure management.
Planned activities over the next six months:
• Complete GIS inventory of streets and intersections, providing the Department of Public Works with a comprehensive representation of the actual surface of the streets and intersections, to be integrated with the City EAM.
• Complete the upgrade to the Common Operational Picture providing live situational awareness to public safety activities related to events at the Levi’s Stadium. This effort started in August 2021 to align with technology upgrades and will continue to completion ahead of the start of the 2022 - 2023 NFL Season.
• Upgrade of the desktop GIS applications, including transitioning to the hybrid cloud/on-premises licensing model. The upgrade addresses technology end-of-life issues, ensures better GIS software and data usage accountability, while opening more opportunities for City staff to design and run location-based queries and analyses, as well as create and share their own maps and visualizations.
• Inventory and map Parks & Recreation assets and facilities added to the City since the initial inventory of all City parks and recreation assets (Kitchell Report, 2018). Provide training and technical support to enable the Department’s staff to further maintain their asset inventory.
• Continue with the integration of the work order and computerized maintenance management system, part of the City’s EAM, for most of the GIS inventories of Streets Division’s asset classes: storm drain, traffic signs, city streets, sidewalks, streets, and intersections. This effort will resume after the cleanup campaign is completed to allow for Streets Division resources to participate.
• Initiate GIS integration with the new sewer video inspection system, which would automatically locate areas of improvement and help plan and execute informed preventative maintenance.
Day-to-Day Operations - Quality assurance and critical data updates are continually being performed in several areas:
Statistics and information related to Enterprise GIS activities can be found in the attached infographic (Attachment 1), indicating City Basemap updates since October 16, 2021, records count in the Enterprise Geospatial Repository (EGR) by department, as well as infoMap and MapSantaClara usage statistics by functionality and geography.
• City Enterprise GIS Basemap - specialized mapping system keeping track of the City’s foundational map layers (addresses, streets, parcels, ownership, general plan and zoning designations, multiyear aerial imagery - see illustration below) and key-related attributes. From October 16, 2021 through May 15, 2022 over 1,600 addresses were updated. An up-to-date Operations Dashboard <https://egis.santaclaraca.gov/portal/apps/opsdashboard/index.html>, which offers a near real-time visualization of edits done to the City Enterprise Basemap is available internally to City staff. Currently, the Enterprise GIS manages 276 - and growing - very diverse layers of geospatial and attribute information, covering the City, and some beyond the City borders, and serving most of the City's business functions, daily, from smart community development to preventative asset maintenance, from effective public safety to environmental compliance and sustainability.
• MapSantaClara - web-based application provides tailored access and reporting functionality to the public - <https://map.santaclaraca.gov> - received over 20,000 visits over the current reporting period.
• Open Data Geospatial Portal - web-based repository providing access to GIS data without the need to request such information, saving City staff time -https://map.santaclaraca.gov/data
• Story Maps - specialized web-based GIS outlets that facilitate information dissemination and increase the level of service to the public, including Development Projects - http://santaclaraca.gov/devprojects and Live Traffic Cameras - <http://santaclaraca.gov/trafficcam>
• Public Safety - Supporting critical operations for both Fire and Police Departments, providing up to date maps and location information for the Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system and police mobile data computers (MDCs), fire incident response and management.
• Enterprise Permitting - Supporting operations and enhancement of the new Enterprise Permit Management System, by providing GIS live location validation for new and more than 500,000 existing permit records, several ways of searching and mapping sites of interest, optimal routing for inspections, and an easy way to review historical records for properties and addresses through infoMap 3.1.
• Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) - key focus area enabling more effective management of City's assets to improve their utilization and performance, reduce capital and operational costs, and improve quality of service. City GIS is an integral part of the EAM Program as the system of record for all assets tracked.
• Regional GIS Collaboration and Coordination - collaboration with neighboring cities, the County of Santa Clara, and other government agencies to ensure regional timely and quality data acquisition and sharing. Through an ongoing agreement, City is receiving fresh annual high-resolution aerial imagery, which is the foundational GIS layer for the City Basemap. A separate effort seeks standardization of GIS data layers for emergency response, including NextGen 911 implementation.
• Steady State GIS - fulfilled numerous requests from various City departments, including the Council Districts boundary update; printable wall maps of Police Beats to aid new officers during their training, orientation, operations and reporting; analysis and map of available undeveloped City-owned properties North of US 101; map of citywide permitted accessory dwelling units; geospatial and property ownership data request to aid the Housing Element Update program; General Plan Amendment updates.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
This is an informational report only and no action is being taken by the City Council, and no environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) is required.
FISCAL IMPACT
There is no cost to the City associated with this report other than administrative time and expense.
PUBLIC CONTACT
Public contact was made by posting the Council agenda on the City’s official-notice bulletin board outside City Hall Council Chambers. A complete agenda packet is available on the City’s website and in the City Clerk’s Office at least 72 hours prior to a Regular Meeting and 24 hours prior to a Special Meeting. A hard copy of any agenda report may be requested by contacting the City Clerk’s Office at (408) 615-2220, email clerk@santaclaraca.gov <mailto:clerk@santaclaraca.gov> or at the public information desk at any City of Santa Clara public library.
RECOMMENDATION
Recommendation
Note and file the Informational Report regarding the Bi-annual Project Status Report of the GIS Services Program.
Staff
Reviewed by: Gaurav Garg, Director of Information Technology/CIO
Approved by: Rajeev Batra, City Manager
ATTACHMENTS
1. Infographic - Enterprise Geospatial Program Activity