"The info was already out there—on physical maps, at the real estate assessor’s website, in files in the Albemarle County Office Building. But the new Geographical Information System website, GIS-Web, combines all that information in one central location and provides the most powerful tool to date for Albemarle homebuyers, developers, real estate brokers, watchdogs, interested locals and geeks of all stripes.

Want to find out who that pesky (or polite) neighbor is and how much his house costs? Want to invite everyone in your subdivision to dinner? Want to make a map of your land to plot that new addition? Want to consolidate for a new development? Want to find out where former Senator George Allen’s property is? Want to check out the land sales in the past month? Want to know how many parcels top 500 acres? The list can go on. The database lets you export spreadsheets of much of this data, so that you can total the value or acreage or create a mailing list.

The system has been in use for one year among County staff and was opened to the public this month. Already, they’re working on upgrades, such as links to Google Maps and Mapquest for selected property.

Does all that data pooled in one place raise privacy concerns? It’s all public record, points out County staff. “We really don’t think that’s going to be an issue for us,” says Tex Weaver, County manager of geographic data services. “All that real estate data has been out there since 2002, assessable over the internet.”

Albemarle isn’t completely cutting edge in all this. Fluvanna and Louisa counties have similar systems, though Charlottesville City doesn’t have one up and running yet.

Give it a spin at gisweb.albemarle.org." (Will Goldsmith, C-Ville Weekly, February 20, 2007)