Page 46 - GCN, August/September 2017

case study GIS
Chamblee, Ga., partners
for GIS and IT expertise
With help from InterDev, the small town outside Atlanta can meet its big-city requirements for infrastructure, support and services
BY STEPHANIE KANOWITZ
Chamblee, Ga., is trying to put itself on the map — literally. It’s working with a managed IT and security services provider on a geographic information system that of- ficials hope will increase transparency and citizen engagement.
Until recently, Chamblee, a city of about 28,000 residents, had no GIS ser- vices. “We had the system, but we did not know how to use it,” City Manager Jon Walker said. Employees tried using an out-of-the-box solution, but after two years, “we had nothing to show for it.”
At least in part, that’s because the employees who were trying to grow Chamblee’s GIS were planners and eco- nomic developers, not GIS experts.
“We just haven’t been able to commit the resources internally to that effort,” Walker said. “Our economic develop- ment director was really trying very hard to put together storyboards for economic development prospects, and the effort that was going into that was really draining him from other projects.”
Now, however, that work is being handled by InterDev, a company the city tapped to provide a comprehensive package of managed IT and GIS ser- vices. InterDev can churn out the same GIS projects in hours that city employ- ees would work on for weeks, Walker said, enabling them to do their main jobs at full capacity.
For the economic development di- rector, “being able to focus on his proj- ects and take the idea to someone who is very knowledgeable in GIS, who can do that storyboard in a day, has really freed up his time,” Walker added.
ON THE ROAD TO MODERNIZATION
With its Esri-based MosaicGIS soft- ware-as-a-service platform, InterDev is creating a public-facing map based on county data to show where paving and streetscape beautification projects will happen in Chamblee. MosaicGIS gives city workers access to a managed Arc-
GIS server paired with a database of the city’s geographic data points.
Officials mapped the city’s five-year plan for paving, “and we’ve put it out there for the public to see what streets are planned for paving and when,” Walker said.
So far, the map contains two of the five years’ worth of data.
Site visitors can click on tabs to see an overview of the project, what’s happen- ing in 2017 and how to get more infor- mation. The site also uses aerial images and storyboards to engage the public.
“On the back end, it was more us- ing what they had,” such as aerial
46 GCN AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017 • GCN.COM
Downtown Chamblee, Ga.
GOOGLE IMAGES