Aventura: GIS Innovation in a Vertical Municipality

Abstract

Introduction

On November 7, 1995, the City of Aventura incorporated and by March 1996, the Mayor and City Council members took office. Shortly thereafter, the City Council appointed its City Manager and City Attorney, and by June 1996, the City of Aventura Government Center opened. By November 1996, one year after its incorporation, City staff consisted of 21 employees with the key departments established, all occupying the fifth floor of a medical office building. Clearly, the first year for the City is an indication that the City meant business when it emphasized expediency in its campaign to secede from Miami-Dade County.

According to the 1990 census, Aventura's population was roughly 20,000 with 92 percent non-Hispanic white and more than half its residents older than 65; according to community leaders, 70 percent of the community is Jewish.2 Today, the City is comprised of about 25,000 residents and is attracting another generation. While the latest government statistics report one of every three of the residents is older than 65, one fourth of Aventura's population is younger than 35 years old and another fourth is between the ages of 35 and 55.3

Furthermore, the City is vertically structured. Within the City's 3.2 square miles, it is comprised mainly of high- rises. At times, referred to as the "Beverly Hills" of the Miami-Dade County region, household incomes average $90,000 to $120,000, compared to the County median income of $26,909.4 Though the City is one of the most affluent in the Miami-Dade County area, the governing body has clearly delivered on its promise to deliver services at a lower cost than the County. Thus, in comparing tax rates, Aventura has the lowest at 2.2270 millage compared to 28 other municipalities in the Miami-Dade County region. The City of Miami has the highest rate (12.2055)5 , yet is recognized as having the poorest delivery of services while running rampant with government corruption and scandal.

Tax Rate Comparison

   	 City              			    Millage

Aventura	      				2.2270
*UMSA (Proposed)				3.2000
Virginia Gardens				3.2950
Bal Harbour					3.5000
Key Biscayne					3.6060
Sweet Water					3.6567
Bay Harbour Islands				5.0000
Coral Gables					5.5090
Surfside		     			5.6030
North Bay Village				5.7730
Miami Springs		     			6.7000
South Miami					6.8000
Florida City					7.1330
El Portal				     	7.7000
Hialeah Gardens					7.7800
Medley						7.9230
Hialeah				      		7.9840
Biscayne					8.1780
West Miami					8.4950
Homestead					8.6816
North Miami Beach				8.6881
Golden Beach					8.7377
Miami Shores					8.7400
North Miami					9.1520
Opa Locka				     	9.8000
Islandia				      	9.8900
Indian Creek					9.9600
Miami Beach			          	10.3580
Miami				          	12.2055

Given the makeup of the City and emphasis on controlled development, in contrast with the typical chaotic "cookie-cutter" development that generally occurs in growing municipalities, clearly the City of Aventura is earning its reputation as a luxury community.

As consultants for the City, Keith and Schnars, P.A., an engineering, planning and surveying firm in Florida provided the expertise to implement the City's GIS. Serving as engineering consultants for a newly-incorporated city such as Aventura places Keith and Schnars in a unique position. Unlike other instances where the firm has provided consulting services to cities already in existence, Keith and Schnars is faced with the challenge of serving as consultants to a city in its infancy. In effect, Keith and Schnars is the City's engineering staff.

From day one, it was clear that the City of Aventura was unlike any other city or client that Keith and Schnars had serviced, given that the firm is serving as the City's sole engineering staff. Furthermore, the City made it clear from the outset that its intent is to become recognized as the "City of Excellence," a model municipality exemplifying a city on the "cutting edge" of technology and with the ability to quickly respond to community needs. Indeed, a great deal of the City's ability to obtain such status depends largely on the firm's ability to expediently deliver quality services. In essence, when it comes to providing services to the community, the City does not want to take on an image such as that of a "clogged monolithic bureaucracy," an image that has been attributed to Miami-Dade County and other government entities.

As Keith and Schnars (K&S) entered into the arena to serve as engineers for newly-incorporated cities, various key issues began to arise requiring a quick response from the firm. Such issues included:
how to " jump-start" a City in a short time frame
educating the City staff and City Council
developing a base map within a short time frame, including gathering and verifying data
collecting data from the Miami-Dade County government, where Aventura was initially a part of prior to incorporation
identifying needed hardware/software for the City
considering the various types of users: City staff, City Council, residents, and developers
external communication (between City and firm) and internal communications (within the City independent of firm and vice versa)
privatization of City personnel

Base Map

In Aventura's case, the City aspired to have a GIS system up and running within a year, thus demonstrating the municipality's ability to provide "cutting edge" services to the residents and City staff, while demonstrating an immediate return on its investment.

To start, an accurate base map needed to be created. To facilitate the time frame set by the City, a base map, that would be suitable for planning purposes, was initially created. Eventually, the City would create a parcel-based database with an accuracy level of +/- 0.10 feet that would satisfy their engineering needs. This engineering base map would be created over time, using E.S.R.I.'s ArcCogo software by entering the coordinate geometry of proposed private and public construction. To facilitate this process, the city required that all proposed development be submitted in both hard copy and digital format (.dxf or .dwg) in the Florida State Plane Zone NAD 83/90 coordinate system. This was necessary to facilitate comparison of the plans with information residing in the GIS database and to verify data prior to approval of these plans. Once approved, the final plans would be placed on disk and submitted to the City for incorporation into its GIS database. Over time, an accurate base map would be created, reflecting all new development construction anticipated for the City. Thus, the database would be continually updated.

To fulfill the need of a base map in the short term, the planning base map was purchased from Florida Power and Light (FPL) in January, 1997. The City chose to utilize this base map based on a number of factors:
it was designed for use in E.S.R.I.'s ArcInfo software,
it had referenced each parcel by the Property Appraiser's folio identification number,
it was relatively inexpensive ($4,173.00 for 7 sections),
it was updated monthly by Miami-Dade County,
it was available immediately and;
Miami-Dade County currently used this as its base map, and all of the County's GIS layers were registered to this base. Since most of the GIS digital data was being transferred from Miami-Dade to the City as a condition for incorporation, this was a major deciding factor.

However, the drawbacks of using the FPL database were:
FPL specification required +/- 5 foot accuracy per National Map Standards, but FP&L does not warrant or guarantee that level of accuracy,
the database was created in 1992 via aerial photography, aerial triangulation and stereo digitization by Analytical Surveys, Inc. Even though it was updated monthly it was not certain just how much additional editing would have to be done and;
FPL considered this data to be proprietary; thus the City could only distribute the data in hard copy format, i.e. maps, but not digitally. For instance, the City would be able to publish the data graphically on its web site for public viewing, but the public would not be allowed to download the data.

Data

The Phase I GIS database contractual agreement covered the following essential coverages:
Municipal Boundary
Future Land Use
Parcels
Streets
Zoning
Existing Drainage
Existing Land Use
Proposed Drainage By February 9, 1998, these deliverables were completed, approved and implemented by the City.

The following are additional layers that have been completed to date:
Subdivisions
Outfall Basins
Bus Routes
City Park
Bus Stops
Police Zones
Condominiums
Rail Road
Drainage Basins
Commercial
Public Facilities
Section-Township-Range
Large Building Footprints
Small Buildings
Lots
Waterbodies

Although most of the above data was available from Miami-Dade County, first it had to be located and collected. The County has a 30- floor building in the heart of downtown Miami with more than 3,000 County employees. The Planning Department alone occupied an entire floor. Often locating the data was like looking for a "needle in a haystack". This made the data collection aspect of the project an ongoing and lengthy task.

Some of the data was in ArcInfo format and was current, but other data was in hard copy only (i.e.- blueprints and plans) and had not been updated. Keith and Schnars had the task of verifying the accuracy of this data and updating it, as necessary, before it was incorporated into the GIS.

GIS Users

The City purchased eight copies of E.S.R.I.'s ArcView 3.0 software in December of 1996. Each of the above- referenced users received ArcView software. Additionally, one additional copy was designated for a staff position that was not currently filled.

This highlights a very important issue -- Keith and Schnars was designing a GIS database for the City, and a number of key City personnel were not yet hired. Currently, the City has 32 employees and it is still growing. An ongoing challenge is meeting the needs of the additional users as they join the City. Flexibility is a key issue in the database design.

Other users of the GIS are the City Council and the residents. The City Council will be using the GIS to assist in their management of the City by getting accurate, current information to support them in their decision making process. The residents are benefitting on many levels: their City is running effectively, thus saving them money, and efficiently meeting their daily needs.

The City employees are better able to serve the residents and developers as they apply for permits, go through the approval process, make an inquiry about their taxes, or any related inquiry as it regards City information. The end results are the residents being satisfied with the level of service provided by the City and the City staff being empowered, through the use of "cutting-edge" technology, to efficiently fulfill the responsibilities of their position.

Training

ArcView 3.0 has a tutorial included, and the City staff went through the tutorial to familiarize themselves with the basic functions of the software. Keith and Schnars conducted an intensive, one-day, hands-on training to the City's Engineering Tech/Cad Operator in November 1997, based upon the E.S.R.I. three day ArcView Training Class.

This training has only "scratched the surface" of the City's training needs. Fortunately, the City recognizes the benefits that can result if key City employees were to attend the ArcView three-day training, or have E.S.R.I. in-house training scheduled and therefore, plans to move forward with such training. Truly such benefits would mean an increased knowledge and use of the GIS software in the day-to-day aspects of City management.

GIS Hardware and GIS Software

However, by February 1997, the City purchased and installed a Novell Compaq Proliant, Pentium Pro 200 megahertz server with an 11 gigabyte RAID storage system. The City was now networked together. The server has the MicroSoft office suite software, including Word and Excel, along with Novell e-mail.

Shortly thereafter, the City added an IBM AS400 Mini-frame for all their purchasing, finance and permit-related data.

The ArcView 3.0b software for Windows 95 is installed on each GIS user's PC, independent of the network, while the GIS coverages are stored on the server. Users access the GIS coverages to perform mapping and conduct analyses. They can read the layers, but not edit or alter them. Groups have been established which allow select City staff members to alter the GIS data that relates to their department, based upon City direction. The users save the results of their analyses/mapping on their own hard-drive.

As for Keith and Schnars, ArcInfo resides on the firm's Unix Sun Sparcstation 20. ArcInfo software version 7.0.4. was used initially for the creation of all of the coverages in the database. Keith and Schnars created the coverages, exported them as .e00 files on zip disks to the City. The City staff imported the files in ArcView 3.0b with the import command.

Currently, Keith and Schnars is using ArcInfo version 7.1.2., and ArcView 3.0 on the Unix Sparcstation, along with ArcView 3.0b for Windows 95 on PC. In fact, Keith and Schnars has the same system in-house as the City. This gave the team the opportunity to test all of our deliverables prior to sending them to the City for approval. This ensured quality end products for the City and minimized "bugs" and/or unforeseen glitches.

GIS Personnel

As the City staff became familiar with the concepts and applications of geographic information systems, they integrated GIS more into their daily work tasks. As their knowledge increased, so did the number of applications. It was evident that a City employee was needed to be responsible for managing the GIS database and being the primary contact for GIS within the City.

In October of 1997, the City Community Services Department hired an Engineering Tech/Cad Operator. The Engineering Tech is the contact for any GIS-related products or inquiries for the City. The Tech has an Epsom color printer which has 11" x 17" color printing capability. Any larger size color graphics are provided by the firm or are out-sourced to a plot service.

Having a City employee designated as the GIS contact for the City has worked very efficiently. The Technician makes requests, by phone, by e-mail or in writing to the GIS Analyst at the firm, much like one department staff member to another. Once prioritized, the GIS request is assigned a completion date, depending on the complexity of the task. A signed Notice to Proceed is faxed over to Keith and Schnars and work is initiated by the firm. Often the GIS products are completed and delivered in a 1-2 day turnaround time.

Metadata

Some key aspects that needed to be considered consisted of the following:
projection system of the data
media type -- paper, digital, etc.
how was it entered into the GIS - scanned, digitized, .dbf file, text file, manually entered, etc...
original source of the data (if it's second generation), including scale, creation date, last updated, contact person (include their name, address, phone/fax number and or e-mail)
accuracy level of the data (i.e. +/- 5 feet)
intended use originally

For more detail regarding Metadata, see the white paper "Metadata Management in GIS" on the E.S.R.I. website: www.Esri.com/base/common/whitepaper/whitepapers/addl_lit.html

Bugs

Much thanks to E.S.R.I. Technical Support, especially Stephen South, for providing an immediate solution. You can contact them via e-mail: support@Esri.com or telephone: (909) 793-3774.

Conclusion

As noted, the City of Aventura is aspiring for excellence in its ability to provide qualitative services to its residents in an expedient fashion. As one can ascertain from the discussion throughout this paper, it is clear that the City is doing just that, not only in its efforts to provide advanced technological services to its residents, but in its ability to provide quality services with a human touch. Residents are continually provided with an update of the City's progression via City Council Meetings, workshops and staff meetings with the various condo/homeowners associations. In fact, there has been discussion of providing residents with instant information pertaining to City government and planning and zoning issues via kiosks that would be situated in the more densely populated condominiums. Thus, Aventura will not only be seen as the "City of Excellence" in terms of the high standard of living and quality of life, but as a high-tech livable community as well.

What's Next

Acknowledgements

City Manager, Eric M. Soroka
Director, Department of Community Service - Robert M. Sherman
Director, Department of Public Works - Alan Levine
Director, Department of Community Development
Police Chief, City of Aventura - Thomas E. Ribel
City of Aventura Staff
Miami-Dade County for cooperation - especially Martha Guerra, Pedro Flores, Anthony Atala, Nancy Alvarez, Ron Feingold, Carmen Lotti, Tony Toledo, and Ricardo Mendez
E.S.R.I. Technical Support Team

References

Author Information