Rural Retreat’s digital maps to go online

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

Computerized mapping data in Rural Retreat is moving out of the dusty catacombs of the digital netherworld and into an organized system that will be easily accessible to both the general public and local government officials.
The town has enlisted the services of Anderson & Associates out of Blacksburg to create a Web-based Geographic Information System that is set to be online by late November.
“We’ve got a lot of information, but no way of using it,” said Town Manager Raymond Matney in explaining the town’s decision to pursue the system.
Matney said that Rural Retreat has accumulated a lot of digital images since it began participating in the Virginia Geographic Information Network about two years ago. The VGIN most notably has provided the town with detailed aerial photographs of the municipality.
The town’s issue now, though, has become how to most effectively use the data and thus led to the GIS project.
Anderson & Associates has developed a demo site for the town, available at http://arcims.webgis.net/va/ruralretreat/default.asp, in which many of the features of the permanent site already are in place.
Matney said he was not sure what the Web address will be for the final product.
The demo GIS site allows the user to find features in the town limits such as buildings, fire hydrants and water and sewer lines. The demo site also provides color-coded zoning overlays, making zoning regulations in each part of town visible.
At certain zoom levels, actual aerial images of the town can also be brought up on the map.
“It is access to that information,” Matney said about the GIS’s benefit to the public. “They don’t have to come down to city hall.”
Although most of the features will be available to the general public, Matney said a few options will be accessible only to local government officials. He named the location of water valves as one likely restricted feature for security reasons.
Water issues also were named by Matney as one of the most important benefits to the system. He described an example of the GIS being used to quickly provide resources to contain a water leak.
Matney admitted that he’s not a computer wizard himself, but said the GIS is not difficult to use.
“I’m just really excited about moving forward with this,” he said. “It’s really going to help the next town manager.”
The initial setup cost for the system is $6,000 and Matney said the town will pay a $300 hosting fee each month for continual use of the Web site.
Once the full Rural Retreat GIS is online, Matney said other layers and features can also be added in the future. Blacksburg’s GIS site, for example, also provides information on bike trails, voting precincts and features relating to the city’s comprehensive plan, such as crime watch regions.
“It’s kind of endless,” Matney said about uses for the system. “We’re just hitting the tip of the iceberg here.”
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 228-6611 or .