EIAT - Questions/thoughts on 'Parcels' layer

Siting Team has a few thoughts/questions/concerns about the 'Parcels' data layer:

• Incompleteness of data: The EIAT User Manual notes that parcel data is sourced from databases in the public domain, but it appears that not all public data is actually reflected in the EIAT. (for instance, examine Steuben County in the west Southern Tier: the EIAT only reflects NYS-owned data for this County, despite the County's inclusion in the NYS Tax Parcels Public dataset, which provides detailed parcel-level data). We recommend re-reviewing to ensure all public parcel data is in fact being included in this layer.

• Parcel-level data characteristics provided: We recommend reconsidering which pieces of parcel-level "key characteristics" data are included in the tooltip;

  • Recommend including some type of parcel ID number, preferentially the 'SWIS_SBL_ID', which is available in the above-linked NYS Tax Parcels Public dataset.

  • We feel 'Parcel Value' can be omitted, given it isn't really being pulled into the EIAT.

  • Question the need for residential parcel owners' names to be included in the tooltip, although we understand this to be publicly available information; would it be possible to omit residential parcel owner names?

• Multiple types of visualization: As identified in the EIAT User Manual, some parcels are well-mapped using polygons, where others are centroid points on the map. Centroid points are much less intuitive and user friendly for the Siting use case; this may be a limitation of the data, but recommend reviewing to see if we can ensure polygon usage across all publicly available data.