Boundary Solutions CEO Publishes History of the National Cadastral Database

February 15, 2019 Mill Valley, CA – Directions Magazine published The History of the National Cadastral as Told by a National Parcel Layer Content Service Provider, written by Dennis H. Klein, GISP PE, president of Boundary Solutions, Inc. It is about how all those parcel lines got on your computer and phone screens. From carvings on stone at the dawn of history to massive geospatial databases spinning in the cloud today, this ‘solutions’ article covers how Cadastral (property) databases have faced the same three challenges throughout the ages: 1) Accuracy 2) Completeness and 3) Accessibility by all. Accuracy and Completeness has clearly been resolved by technology. Accessibility is different. No amount of tech can resolve political obsessions with closed records as shown below. Along the way, IAAO published findings revealed that there is a material bump in tax base growth upon going open records that incented, and continues to incent, counties give up closed records.

Next addressed are developments leading up to federal government’s latest position. According to the record, FGDC officially recommends that ultimately there be a National Repository of Cadastral Data. Just as officially on the record, there is no plan in place for doing it. Having attended nearly every National Geospatial Advisory Committee Meeting from its inception to 2017, the author agrees with his Washington contacts that it will be a long time before the government will fill that hole. Rather than wait, included here is a vendor’s proposal predicated on STRICT separation between private and public (authoritatively sponsored) records. First benefit is to maximum urgency for modernization subsidies to even the most derelict county in the most derelict state to bring them into (and forever) the deal. Second, without it, there is no assurance of universal data authenticity.

This history ends as of right now, describing a game-changing breakthrough in ‘CONVENIENCE’ that enables the National Parcel Layer to benefit government, commerce and private citizens as never before.