Peterborough, New Hampshire
Why does a local government need a mapping system? Local governments use maps for all sorts of purposes: for fire and emergency response; setting school boundaries; locating water and sewer pipes; and much more.
One small New Hampshire town built a state-of-the-art geographic information system (GIS) and an IT department that would be the envy of any big city.
How did they do it?
The answer has everything to do with the ability of the town administrator to recognize potential in technology and in people.
Building the system
In 1997, Peterborough, NH (pop. 6,284), received a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Project Impact Grant for hazard mitigation.
The town used some of the funding to begin building a GIS—documenting past hazards; assessing current hazards, such as potential flood areas; and inventorying critical assets, such as its water and sewer systems.
In early 2002, the town acquired the software, ArcGIS, and had Fash Farashahi, a graduate school intern, build the database and operate the system.
In 2003, the planning director who started the program left unexpectedly. Town Administrator Pamela Brenner isn’t a technologist and knew very little about GIS, but she still recognized the system’s value for a small community like Peterborough.
Pam quickly became the champion of the system and of Fash. Together they made presentations on GIS and its capabilities to the town’s select board, planning board, master plan steering committee, and many other business and service groups. Their efforts paid off and the GIS program was funded, and continues to receive support from the community.
Capitalizing on efficiencies, technological and human
When the opportunity arose to combine GIS and IT into one department, Brenner saw the potential efficiencies, both technological and human. Housing GIS in one department, rather than spreading it through many, makes Peterborough unique and eliminates data redundancy and compatibility issues, while boosting collaboration.
More than a decade later, Fash manages the department for which he was once an intern. Almost all the town’s departments, including Public Works, Community Development, Assessing, and Police and Fire, rely on the system to better serve residents.
The GIS database includes points and layers for all town infrastructure, tax maps for all properties, flood mapping, utility pole locations, zoning layers and more. It offers high quality maps to the public and Online Web Mapping access.
Fash completed the town’s first Open Space Inventory and town-owned Lands Inventory, compiling information that had been available on paper in different locations, and made it easily accessible to the public online.
The system has led to a number of cost savings, giving Peterborough the ability to:
- do all mapping in-house, eliminating any need to use outside consultants.
- manage all Public Works assets in-house.
- save an average of approximately $10,000 for each municipal engineering project by providing its consulting engineers high quality data to complete preliminary site designs.
Few small towns have GIS, let alone a system that provides high quality information. Thanks to the vision of Town Administrator Pamela Brenner, Peterborough staff and residents no longer see it as a luxury item but as a necessity for municipal operations.
Learn more on the town’s website.
Meet the Manager
