91视频

Portland Maps, the popular, city-operated website that displays assessors’ records, building permits and other public information about individual properties, is moving into the era of mobile technology.

The geographic information system (GIS) website has remained unchanged since city staffers created it more than 15 years ago, so an upgrade is long overdue, said Matthew Freid, information systems manager with Portland’s Bureau of Technology Services. Besides sporting a retro appearance, the antiquated website hasn’t kept pace with advances in technology and doesn’t work well on smartphones or tablets, he said.

鈥淚t’s becoming increasingly incompatible with modern systems,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he new site is designed to work on any screen size. It’s touch-enabled, our hope being that people use it outside the office. Bringing it into that mobile process, that was our thesis design statement.鈥�

City officials recently launched a beta version of the updated site, portlandmaps.com/beta, with the aim of gathering public input on the new Portland Maps. Making the beta version public will allow Freid and other city staffers developing the new site to identify any glitches and ensure that it can handle a high volume of users, he said.

鈥淐urrent Portland Maps is still going to be there,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he expectation is that people can use (the beta site). We’d like them to give us feedback 鈥� Our intent is to get more people using it in a novel way.鈥�

Once any bugs and performance issues have been worked out, the beta version will likely replace the current Portland Maps site within the next six months, he said.

The update to Portland Maps coincides with the Information Technology Advancement Project, an initiative to move the city’s development review process to a paperless system, said Ross Caron, a spokesman for the Bureau of Development Services. BDS staffers are working closely with city GIS specialists to develop an electronic permitting system that will include a mapping function with layers showing different information about specific properties, such as floodplains and zoning designations.

The updated Portland Maps site will also assist BDS staffers who are responsible for setting the addresses for new developments, Caron said.

鈥淲hen you come in and apply for a permit, one of the steps you would do is identify the property using a GIS interface,鈥� he said.

Freid said he and other city staffers have been working for the past year and a half to develop the updated Portland Maps. Among the advantages of the beta version of Portland Maps over the current site is a more easily navigable online mapping interface, similar to Google Maps, he said. Users of the beta site can also pinpoint where they are on the map and find information about nearby properties. Other new features include a satellite image view, an address search bar that offers suggestions, more detailed utility line mapping and the ability to bookmark specific properties and share information from the site via email or social media.

The current version of Portland Maps is widely used by both city staffers and the general public and receives thousands of daily page views, Freid said.

鈥淧eople have come to rely on it,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t’s an internal resource as well as an external resource.鈥�

But there are drawbacks to the site and a large goal of updating Portland Maps is to make it more user-friendly, Freid said.

鈥淲e’re this central clearinghouse for all this GIS information and trying to have that authoritative data source that people can get to easily,鈥� he said.

One drawback to the current site is finding information about a specific property without the address, he said. The ability to sync GPS-enabled devices to the beta Portland Maps eliminates this problem.

鈥淭his can take advantage of a GPS,鈥� Freid said. 鈥淭here are a lot of places in the city where there is no address, and trying to get (the current) Portland Maps to go to a place where there wasn’t an address was hard to do.鈥�

The new Portland Maps will be a great resource for contractors and others in the architecture, construction and engineering industries, he said. Information included on the site includes city staff phone numbers and emails to learn more about building permits filed for a particular property and details about easements and the location of utility lines. In the future, zoning and height limits will likely be added to the site.

Freid encouraged industry professionals to test out the beta site and offer feedback via the 鈥渁bout鈥� tab.

鈥淚t will help us build a lot of the pieces of how people use it,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e’re also going to be doing tons and tons of analytics. A big piece of this is getting people to try and use it.鈥�