Agricultural Preservation and GIS - 2000 NACo Achievement Award Winner
An automated Agricultural Land e-valuation program was developed jointly between the Department of Technology and Enterprise Business Solutions Geographic Information Services (TEBS-GIS) team and the Department of Economic Development (DED) Agricultural Services Division. This program allowed Agricultural Services planners to view, select, evaluate, and map parcels of land that are to be considered for agricultural easements and other protection programs.
The program has reduced the time it takes to evaluate a land parcel from 40 hours to less than 20 minutes, thereby, enabling staff to review more properties in less time! For example, if 10 to 15 studies were conducted each year using the program, then an average savings of 495 person hours (3 months) would be achieved. Consequently, this has enabled Montgomery County to protect additional acres of agricultural land which has attracted additional funds for Agricultural protection. Today, approximately 30 percent of the County's land area is still used for agriculture.
For more information on Agricultural Preservation in Montgomery County, please visit the Department of Economic Development (DED) Agricultural Services Division's web site.