[Talk-us] Allegheny County (Pennsylvania) real estate assessment website for addresses

stevea steveaOSM at softworkers.com
Wed Feb 5 19:08:23 UTC 2014


James and OSM volunteers in the USA:

I am not an attorney, but I will say this.

It depends on which of the fifty states.  Many states (I know 
California, where I live) have what is known as a Public Records Act 
(often part of the Government Code part of state statutes).  Simply 
put, this makes a request by a Citizen or resident of that state a 
direct mandate upon the state to produce (thereby releasing) the 
records.  Usually for free, or sometimes with a small fee for 
duplication costs (maybe ten minutes of staff time and the cost of a 
CD-ROM, for example) being allowed under the law.

Further, in California, multiple court cases against state agencies 
which hold GIS data, including one which went all the way to the 
California Supreme Court, have ruled that public data are public 
data, and must be released to members of the public who ask for them. 
This specifically includes GIS data, and also requires that there be 
no (onerous or otherwise) "terms of license" that restrict their use.

So, your state (being sovereign in these matters) governs this -- 
find out in YOUR state!  Heck, we might even make a small OSM 
WikiProject that lists all fifty states in the USA and shows what is 
the known status of public access to public records in each state. 
I'll start by saying that in California, it is the California Public 
Records Act, and it is wonderful that our state and county agencies 
have nothing to hide behind if they try to get possessive with OUR 
data.

Once the nexus is established of "I, Citizen have the data" plus "I, 
an OSM volunteer have the data" the data can enter OSM.  But not 
automatically, as any data import should be discussed more widely 
amongst OSM.

I have posted details about this several times already.  Because I 
seem to be typing these words a lot here, and because talk-us gets 
these questions a lot, the more a small WikiProject along these lines 
(a table of known statewide public data policies) sounds like a good 
idea.

THEN, there are the very large questions about WHETHER any particular 
public data belong in OSM, and how they might get there.  That is an 
altogether different topic:  just because a firehose of public data 
are available doesn't mean they ought to be sprayed into OSM.  We 
discuss importing data quite a lot both here and in other places. 
Right now, I'm only talking about how public-agency-maintained GIS 
data is very likely yours for the asking, depending on your state 
laws.  So, do a little research, find out, and report back!

SteveA
California


>I'm just wondering, do you guys think that Allegheny County's real 
>estate assessment website is OdbL compatible to use to gain 
>addresses to put into OSM?
>
><http://www2.county.allegheny.pa.us/RealEstate/Search.aspx>http://www2.county.allegheny.pa.us/RealEstate/Search.aspx
>
>I haven't taken any addresses from it, but if it's compatible with 
>OSM, it could be a gold mine for getting a big area of addresses 
>done for the OSM world.
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