City of Vancouver Gift Wraps Parcel and Address Data For ICIS

If you haven't already seen the City of Vancouver's Open Data Portal - their online distribution site for GIS data - now is a very good time as they've just launched version 2. This enhancement provides many more data layers in several common formats in a very intuitive, accessible and eye-pleasing format. Its sets a rich and impressive benchmark for municipal data sharing.

Vancouver has never claimed to be the first ones to embrace open data (they acknowledge trailblazing efforts by Kamloops and Nanaimo - and the District of North Vancouver has also released an excellent site), but they're certainly carrying the standard forward impressively. And here's the windfall for ICIS - a set of layers preconfigured to meet ICIS delivery requirements! Vancouver has pupose-built a number of data extraction scripts to provide ICIS with the parcel and address data that we require in the format and structure that best meets our needs. This level of service demonstrates real leadership in collaborative data sharing and contributes greatly to the goal of province-wide cadastral and address databases.