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County of San Benito Assessor’s Office

LynxTechnologies, Inc. has been working with San Benito County since 2000 to help develop its GIS. This has evolved over 20 years and several environments from AutoCAD to ArcGIS Enterprise Portal 11.2. In 2021 Lynx was contracted by the County Assessor’s Office. The Assessor’s Office was looking to migrate from Autodesk’s

AutoCAD to ESRI’s ArcGIS Enterprise environment to update and generate Assessor Map Pages. The Parcel layer was initially established in 2000 in AutoCAD. 1,051 assessor’s pages were scanned and georeferenced, and all linework and annotations trace digitized. The subsequent files were edge matched and rectified to the regional digital orthophotography. AutoCAD drawings were prepared to maintain the ‘look-and-feel’ of the original hand drawn assessor’s maps. The parcel data was migrated to ESRI’s ArcSDE Geodatabase (SQL) format in 2005, and a synchronization workflow established to maintain a dual AutoCAD/ESRI environment and coordinate production between the Assessor’s Office and IT/GIS departments. Linework was COGO’d by the Assessor’s staff and migrated to GIS, as-is, to preserve and maintain the COGO attributes. The resulting lot linework was then used to generate new and or update parcel polygons within the ESRI enterprise geodatabase.

The Assessor’s Office Migration Project required several key components: 1) Migrate 1,051 assessor map drawing files into one seamless Enterprise Geodatabase format, 2) Develop the standards and workflows to produce content for the public, 3) map production of 66 Assessor’s Map Books, and 4) training for staff. A separate database schema was established following ESRI’s LGIM. All unique elements were added to Enterprise Geodatabase including: Assessor Parcel Numbers, Lot numbers, Lot Line dimensions, Tax Rate Area boundaries, Spanish Land Grant boundaries, Public Land Survey System boundaries, and other unique Lot Descriptions.

Specialized criteria was required to manage duplication across overlapping Assessor’s map pages. We worked closely with Assessor Office staff to solve conversion issues and manage various map scales. There were also many dimension discrepancies between adjacent map pages; these were managed using a simple Problem  Resolutions Procedure. A Standards Document was created to preserve the procedure and modified during a lengthy pilot program in which 3 assessor’s books spanning 3 popular map scales was produced.

A complex ArcGIS Pro 3.x layout was designed to seamlessly match the 1,051 Assessor Maps and 66 Map Book Index pages. The layout and .aprx settings manage multiple map scales and orientations, as well as overlapping annotations, and plotting rules. The Assessor Map Pages are now updated and maintained within a single geodatabase, and a single project file is shared by 3 staff. Indeed, the entire County Assessor data can be published within a few hours, and the complex process to manage 1,051 AutoCAD files is deprecated. 50 hours was invested to train 3 Assessor’s Office staff in ArcGIS Pro 3.x. Training included: 1) AutoCAD-to-ArcGIS skills, 2) ArcMap-to-ArcGIS Pro Tips and Tricks, 3) COGO digitizing in ArcGIS Pro, 4) Creating and Editing features and feature-linked annotation, 5) Layout Creation/How to Create a New Assessor’s Map Page, 6)  Map Series production management and 7) Process Workflow to edit and republish on a daily basis. One to three-hour sessions were spread over 6 months, staff is now proficient in updating pages and printing Assessor Maps.