Updated Fort Smith Web site provides ‘richer’ property data

The information technology wizards with the city of Fort Smith have pulled together a “layered” map of Fort Smith that allows anyone with Internet access to learn much about the city’s zoning, development plans and political boundaries — just to name a few categories.

Russell Gibson, director of the city’s Information Technology-Geographic Information Systems sector, said the Web site “reflects our on-going attempt to bring a richer user experience to the City’s online GIS efforts.” He also said the updated Web site could help the economic development efforts of the city and regional chambers. (The City Wire has requested input from the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce and will update this post when input is received from the chamber.)

Gibson said the Web site uses a Flash-based development platform known as “Flex.” The “GeoDashboard” elements allow users to customize the information they research and collect, Gibson explained. Work on the new features began in the spring.

“Commonly referred to as a Rich Internet Application (RIA) technology, the Flex framework provided to the City the ability to create online mapping applications with a more intuitive, visually-rich and responsive user interface,” Gibson explained via an e-mail interview. “The development of the site represents roughly 250 person hours of development time including training and testing.”

Users, for example, can type in an address and learn more about the property. City residents can find info about their school districts, trash service schedule, a link to property info from the Sebastian County Assessor’s Office, and information about elected municipal and state officials representing that address.

A “Land Use Map” feature provides details on what properties are classified as residential, commercial and industrial. The Web site also provides a link to the city’s master street plan, a link showing aerial photos of the city, links to maps showing city ward boundaries, and a link to a broad development map of the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority.

“The newer Flex-based technology will bring to the Web site faster searching for potential development properties, better thematic mapping and the ability for users to add their own graphics for emphasis, reporting, etc.,” Gibson said. “Also present will be a demographic report tool which allows the user to create a profile of census-related data from a given distance of a potential property.”