GIS History in Kaysville

In 1992 the Kaysville City Power Department determined that it would be of value if the City owned power facilities were documented and recorded in a GIS system. On the recommendation of David Day, of Gateway Mapping in Orem, Utah, the City decided to use the Atlas GIS program. Gateway was hired to produce a base map of the City, the most important element being all parcels of property, streams, water ways, etc. 

Base Map

The power system was placed on the base map using mainly old subdivision plats. All other power lines were added from old maps and drawings that were field checked with lines drawn on them. A parallel effort was started with the Public Works Department where Gateway began a survey of those facilities and used existing maps as a guide. This information was added to the base map. 

When the power system was complete, responsibility for this system was transferred to Kaysville City for updating and maintenance. Responsibility for the base map stayed with Gateway. Periodically, Gateway would obtain an update from Davis County in order to update the base map.

Community Development

 When the Community Development Department saw the value of the GIS system, it was evident that this periodic update was too slow to be of value when new subdivisions were approved and building commenced. Digitizing new subdivisions solved this problem. They were placed in a layer named Temp Parcels and were not part of the base map. When the base map was updated, if the Temp Parcels were covered by the update, they were deleted. 

All power customers were added to the base map from the City accounting system and added to a point layer where the point was within the parcel of property. This information was updated monthly. It was soon evident that information regarding the parcel of property would be of value. The property owner’s name, address, type of property, and the valuation was obtained from the County and added to the information of the power customer. This information is updated every six months.

Fire Department

The Fire Department saw the value of the information as many of the new addresses were names rather than numbered streets. The information was most useful to them in paper form. Therefore, a book was produced where the street names could be quickly identified in an index and the location seen on an individual page of the document. Since the Fire Department provides protection for Fruit Heights City, a map for that city was added to the base map. 

Fire hydrants for Fruit Heights were field checked and added to the map. Because Kaysville City also provides fire protection for some areas in the County between Kaysville City and Layton City, that information was also added to our map. The base map contained the parcels outside, adjacent to Kaysville City. This information was not updated, but became very valuable as annexations took place.

System Updates

In approximately 1995, responsibility for the base map was transferred to Kaysville City from Gateway. When the Atlas dos based system became obsolete, all the data was transferred to ArcView 3.2. By this time, all departments in the City were using the system to some degree.

GIS Administrator

Ryan Judd was brought on in 2002 as a full time GIS Administrator to maintain and improve upon current data and mapping systems. He was able to implement dozens of improvements to the structure of the GIS data and the way the map are used and consumed. As Ryan’s role shifted into Information Technology (IT) Administrator, the city hired Jordan Hansen as the GIS Administrator. He has focused on bringing web-based mapping into the hands of employees and citizens for clear and concise use and collection of GIS data. The Kaysville City website now has a front-and-center mapping section that provides links to many of the cities public maps that are interactive, searchable, and easy to use.

Summary

In summation, the GIS system was originally intended to provide information for the Power Department, but as other departments saw the value of the system it was soon expanded to every department of the City.