[Talk-us-massachusetts] Adding new open space parcels to the inventory

[Greg Troxel]

Certainly as new parcels get defined somebody needs to add them.  This
is pretty normal.

I'll add also that copying from Google Maps is not ok, almost no matter
what.  It is almost certainlytrue that the parcel data is from MassGIS
and thus public domain, but you really have to just not use Google
anything at all.  Instead we get the "L3 parcels" data from the state as
Alan explained, and can use it into josm.  That's hugely helpful in
mapping conservation land.

The L3 parcels data is pretty good.  So unless you have authoritative
town data that you can tell is better, or you know it's wrong, it's a
good thing to use, on the OSM theory that a conservatiion boundary
that's pretty close is vastly better than not having one.   Keep in mind
that your phone or other handheld GPS unit is only good to 3-10m anyway,
worse in the woods with lots of leaves.

For trails, a bare highway=path implies bicycles and horses are allowed,
and co-primary.  So it's likely that you shoudl add foot=designated if
the property owner/manager has a presumption that hiking is a primary
use.  To me, this needs only the slightest "hiking is fine, and
bicycling you have to be careful about these rules" sort of tone.  Many
areas prohibit bicycles except on certain trails, so you should add
bicycle=no on all the places bicyles aren't allowed.

Also, be careful about mapping trails on private land.  If there is a
trail, and it's not rude to walk on it, that's one thing, but trails
that go onto individual residential lots (without an easementn of
course) are probably best left unmapped as a community relations
decision.

There are the issues of

  public access to the parcel (access=yes on the area)

  public access to trails (access=yes on the trail, even if
  access=private is on the area, such a a parcel with a CR and a trail
  easement)

  conservation but not municipal/explicit land (CR, private land,
  basically), where you should use boundary=protected area, according to
  local thought and also the wikis.  I think you should also use
  landuse=conservation, but the wiki says that's deprecated.

  land that further is owned by town or a trust, where the public can
  go, should be further tagged leisure=nature_reserve,  which expresses
  the joint concepts of "preserve land to be natural including for
  creatures" and "people can hike".
  


If you are haivng a hard time with josm/l3 (there's quite a learning
curve with josm), and you can identify the parcels, somebody here can
add a polygon or two and then you can tag it.
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