Reno Planning Hub Project

Carter Williams

Application Demo

Web GIS Final Presentation

01 / 05

Purpose

City governments around the world are leveraging the power of web GIS applications to make government more transparent, accessible, and engaging.

The goal of my project was to consolidate a number of city planning mapping and public engagement services into a single hub or portal.

  • Create a map that focuses on property zoning and provides property specific standards and requirements.
  • Create a map that provides information more generally on the operation of a city.
  • Create a resource that allows citizens to review active planning applications for development and provide public comment.

The Data

For this project I utilized authoritative data from the City of Reno OpenData Hub but I also generated my own data from the City's government management system.

City Zoning Designations

The City of Reno has 34 base zoning districts that encompass residential, commercial, industrial, mixed-use, and specialty zones like Parks, Greenways, and Open Space. For this project, I chose to reduce the scope to just the downtown core which has the highest density of all the city while also providing for some interesting variation.

Downtown Mixed-Use Districts

  • Entertainment District
  • Innovation District
  • Riverwalk District
  • Northwest Quadrant
  • Powning District
  • University District

Community Map Data

The community map within the project includes a mix of layers that community members are able to navigate freely.

  • Parks
    • Provides polygons of all city-maintained park facilities.
  • Special District Areas
    • Includes the downtown business improvement district, opportunity zones, special assessment districts, and other areas identified for redevelopment.
  • Zoning Overlays
    • Zoning overlays include airport restriction zones like flight paths or zones that allow for the establishment of new casino-hotels.
  • Master Plan Land Use
    • A city's Master Plan or Comprehensive plan is a document that provides a long-range (often 20 year horizon) plan for growth, economic development, and community goals. Land use categories are assigned to every area of the sphere of influence (SOI).
  • Police & Fire Facilities
    • Police and Fire Department service areas and station locations.
  • Water Bodies
    • Boundaries and lines along significant hydrological features like lakes, streams, and drainageways.
  • Parcels
    • Parcel and property owner data for each property in Washoe County. The parcels data was also used in the search widget as many property owners, real estate agents, and developers use parcel numbers, especially for null addresses.
  • Jurisdictions
    • Includes data like city limit boundaries, planned city growth areas (SOI), and City Council Ward boundaries.

Development Project Data

In order to acquire this data, I had to create a report in the city's government management system. This report looked at all planning applications within the last year and a half and associated longitude and latitude for each record. Planning applications include:

  • Conditional Use Permits
    • 24-hour operations, nightclubs, etc.
  • Site Plan Review Permits
    • Site specific considerations like hillside development, excessive grading, or disturbance of drainageways.
  • Tentative Maps
    • Preliminary review of new residential subdivision development.

And more...

This data was published by extracting a csv and using it to set up a hosted feature layer. A little bit of data management had to occur in order to accurately represent the longitude and latitude data.

Misc. Layers and Services

User Defined Points of Interest

This layer was created blank and manually set up for data entry. It was designed to only allow additions, deletions, and edits by the individual who placed the point so these points can be used in analysis.

A domain list was used to build a form in the creation of features that notes whether the point indicates a business or residential address.

Washoe County Geocoding Service

I used a local geocoding service to maintain search results to the county scope.

Key Features and Functionality

Landing Page

First, I created an entry point for users that looks similar to a portal deployment. It provides an overview of the capabilities to expect of the application and then links to individual resources. This seeks to achieve my goal of consolidating resources so users are not seeking across different websites and platforms.

Feature Info Widget and Pop-up Configuration

Within the Downtown Districts map, the pop-up was reconfigured to include Arcade-driven information generation that changes based on the selected zoning district.

The below code snippet uses the zoning abbreviation fields to pull images from the hosted images within the Reno Municipal Code. The Decode() function allows for an if-else workflow that uses the information following the true criteria in the return.

Decode( $feature.NEW_Z_ABBR,
  "MD-ED", "https://mcclibrary.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/codecontent/14345/419647/18_02_301.png",
  "MD-ID", "https://mcclibrary.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/codecontent/14345/419647/18_02_302.png",
  "MD-NWQ", "https://mcclibrary.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/codecontent/14345/419647/18_02_303purpose.png",
  "MD-RD", "https://mcclibrary.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/codecontent/14345/419647/18_02_304.png",
  "MD-UD", "https://mcclibrary.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/codecontent/14345/419647/18_02_305.png",
  "MD-PD", "https://mcclibrary.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/codecontent/14345/419647/18_02_306.png",
  ""
)

Buttons and Windows

I used buttons and window elements to provide context and information on each page. This provides a more user conscious experience.

Public Comment Survey

The web application has been designed to offer an immediate opportunity to provide public feedback through an integrated form. The form has also been data connected to the map selection, so it will autofill when the public comment button is selected.

Future Improvements

I have a few items that I have identified that I would like to improve upon are below:

  1. The arcade script used is a little redundant and does not seem very versatile. I would like to come up with a solution that also references csv data that can be updated whenever there are code changes, instead of requiring updates to the Arcade script.
  2. I want to integrate more information from the government management system, including contact information, application materials, and maybe even polygons representing site area.
  3. Include Power Automate scripting in the survey form to automatically notify case managers and public officials.