Typical Notes
I would hope that a judge would be unsympathetic.
Statute makes the Town Clerk the responsible party for the Zoning Map, so I talked to her today. She understands the situation and is pulling the files. She also does not have many maps in the vault. I do not recall a full map change before Town Meeting since the GIS guy started in ~2000, so I think we will find the last official Zoning Map on file with the Clerk being pre-GIS.
Typical Notes
There were lots of older maps showing the "correct" zoning, but the city council made the GIS the official map and that was the only resource available to the general public. Why they would think it was a good idea with all the errors imbedded in the GIS is still weird to me.
In fact I just had a meeting with a land owner yesterday and the GIS showed her property so badly she thought she needed an easement to get to it even though her property borders a state highway,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,:-(
She kept bringing it up and I finally said; "don't worry about it, I'll take care of it".
She just didn't understand why the "official" map shows her land 200' south of the state highway and I kept telling her it isn't.
About 16 years ago I was retained by a man that wanted to build a business on some commercial property he had just purchased. The city zoning officer/code officer denied his permit application. He said it was residential property. I looked at the map with the parcel lines and it was clearly commercial. We went back and forth over the phone. Finally arranged a sit down. He was using his scale to make his determination. The map had been reduced.... Thank God they had a bar scale and I could prove my point. He simply didn't notice. He was very apologetic. Nearly caused a lawsuit though.
Typical Notes
In my little space the only difference in the inaccuracy of the GIS and the county recorders ownership maps is one is online and the other is not. Yet to the public they are the official boundary maps. Both are crap as far as boundaries are concerned yet hold more weight as boundary depiction than any surveyors plat in the eyes of the public. They cost a lot less also.
I kinda always thought that sooner or later the need to bring accuracy and reality to the GIS and county maps would come forth. I'm losing faith in the dream rapidly. If it costs the public money it ain't going to happen, not in my space. If it ain't free you ain’t going to get it. And free is worth what you pay for it.
