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When the city receives an application to change the zoning of a particular property or the administration itself decides to change the zoning plan, a formal rezoning process begins. Primarily, the proposed land use must be compatible with land uses of the surrounding area and fit in with the city's zoning plan.

To protect the right of citizens, the city must inform affected property owners about rezoning and allow them to express any concerns or objections at a public hearing. The city uses letters sent by certified mail, legal notices on the property itself, and a notice published in a local newspaper to inform residents and property owners within a specified radius of the property of the public hearing.

The Process
The zoning process has become much simpler since the GIS software solutions are available. All the information that was previously recorded on separate paper map is now contained in a single integrated spatial database that is linked to the city's parcel database. The database contains property, owner and zoning data.


Picture No.3: City Spatial Database

In a typical real life application, when the planner receives a rezoning application for a vacant residential property to be changed to commercial land use, the GIS package makes it easy for the planner to quickly assemble a list of properties within a stipulated buffer distance around the applicant's property and automate the task of mailing zoning notification letters with Microsoft Word and Seagate Crystal Report. Because the GIS package has buffering capabilities built into its selection filter mechanism, planner does not even have to create a separate buffer to generate the property list. The GIS product saves the list as a Microsoft Access database table, which the planner then uses to extract information for mailing list from the city's parcel database. The tight integration between the GIS software product, Microsoft Word and Access and Seagate's Crystal Report allows the planner to carry out required task more easily and quickly.

Broadly the planner application, containing the parcel information of the applicant's property

• The rezoning application, containg the parcel information of the applicant's property
• The city's property database containing property and street data
• The city's parcel non graphic database containing property and owner data
• The planning department's standard mailing letter head to inform affected land owners
• The planning department's standard rezoning notification letter in digital format

After putting above information in place the planner can conduct following task using GIS tool

• Locate the property of applicant who wants change of land use
• Select the affected property with specified buffer distance for new land use
• Create rezoning area map
• Create Mailing List of affected property
• Create Mailing Letter to affected property

Summary
The above exercise illustrates the importance of computer aided tools for day-to-day activities. The planner can look for different options and choose the best suited for the end result. The automated process is not only faster but can be monitored effectively in any eventuality.

The above application using GIS tool is one of the many areas where such utilities can be used for managing planning activities. Few of these are Urban Information System, Land use monitoring system, Tax Collection System, Land Registration and Monitoring System, Urban Holding Application etc.

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