[Talk-us] Fresno castradal imports

[Brett Lord-Casitllo]

"Because that information is useless in OSM. It was out of
date the second
someone ran the upload script and unless the city of
Fresno decides to
switch to OSM for their official tax plat information
(which I'm pretty
sure would be illegal in most jurisdictions), no one in
the community can
improve it. We should get rid of it."

Excuse me, but what is your foundation for declaring cadastral data "useless" in OSM?
Where does it say that OSM is just for roads, addresses, and geocoding? As someone that uses OSM for disaster response, cadastral data, even outdated cadastral data, is a godsend when it is available. Cadastral is the foundation to developing damage assessments; often the only usable source for damage assessment in the US. It is far, far more easily than roads in this context; and were Fresno to be hit by an earthquake next week, it would be a PR disaster to find out that the critical cadastral data was available in OSM, and is now wiped away.
This data even has the parcel ID, the most critical piece of information that often is excluded from cadastral sets. That keys you into everything else you might want: address, land value, building value, FIRM map, etc.

I do not understand this constant desire to handicap the usefulness of OSM.
--Brett
Brett Lord-Castillo
Information Systems Designer/GIS Programmer
St. Louis County Police
Office of Emergency Management
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