After many months of work, typically late at night after my daughter falls asleep, Propertize.ca versions 4.0 is now live!
Click the image below to try it out:
As this is a new major release, I thought I would review the significant changes (for the curious folks out there).
1) Simple Searching – No More Taxing Authorities
The number one issue faced my every one living outside of Saint John, Fredericton, and Moncton is “what is my taxing authority?“.
It’s a great question, and the #1 reason why most people can not use the existing government website. They just don’t know. What they do know is the place that they live.
Luckily, I’ve found an open data locations file for every property in NB. Using this file, I can now provide a very simple way for people to search for assessments – just type in the street name!
Tip: Be sure to ONLY enter your street name, such as King or Queen. If you add the street type (drive, street, avenue) – it will not return any results. Just remove it and try again.
How simple is this:
After you search, I can now look up matching streets for the entire province, and let you select the correct one:
2) Search Results – Ready for 2012
The search results page is generally the same; but, the columns have been tweaked to support adding the 2012 assessments when they are released in early March.
At that time, I will be able to show both the 2011 and 2012 assessment for every property in New Brunswick and be able to indicate the percentage of change (plus or minus). I will be heavily promoting the site more once they are released. In the meantime, you can continue to view the 2011 assessments.
Tip: Entering a civic number will cause your assessment to be highlighted in the list. This can make it easier to spot your house in large lists!
3) Include Nearby Properties
This feature has been a little flaky in the past; but, now that I have full location data (and accurate co-ordinates), I can actually pull back all assessments within a radius of your property – up to 1km.
Tip: It’s best to specify your civic number for this (so that the search is centered on your location). If you do not specify this, it will still work; but, the search will center on a random location on your street.
Want to try it out? Just change the “Include Nearby Properties” dropdown to “Yes”:
Also, be sure to click the link to view the results in Google Maps, as it really shows how accurate the mapping is:
Tip: Entering your civic address will also cause your marker to be highlighted in a different color (making it easier to see in the map):
Going Forward
As I mentioned earlier, the 2012 assessment information will be my main focus once it’s released.
In addition to that, I’m looking to add more analytics – perhaps some analysis on assessments by locations, county, etc. There may be some fun trends to be discovered!
If you have ideas/suggestions, be sure to let me know.
Leave your feedback
As always – many of these changes are driven by user feedback, suggestions, and even your angry rants – so be sure to tell me what you think!
Leave a comment below, or send me an email.
It’s seems one of my dreams has come true!
Today, I was featured in a CBC story on Open Data in New Brunswick – airing on CBC radio, web, and TV:
Read onward for the Web version (with video):
Citizens ask for access to public data
The New Brunswick government and its universities are coming under pressure from citizens to make more raw data available to the public.
Many governments in Canada and around the world have embraced the so-called open data agenda and have freed up raw data to citizens so they can arrange public information in useful ways and collaborate with others to better understand the numbers.
Now, New Brunswick citizens and companies are arguing the government and universities should stop holding back similar information.
Shawn Peterson built the website — propertize.ca — because he wanted to compare his property tax assessment with his neighbours.
It’s now online and contains easy to find data for the entire province.
“I’d like to take it forward and be able to expand it into other provinces,” he said.
He’s taken public information and made it easy to use. But Peterson has also taken something for nothing and turned a profit.
Those pushing for more access to data have other ideas of how information can be used.
City buses could be tracked through smartphones, potholes could be reported and a city could notify people when they were fixed and snowplows could be monitored so people don’t have to shovel twice.
Patrick Lacroix, the managing director for the Fredericton-based company T4G, said there are many ways that the open data agenda could actually make life easier for citizens and allow communities to become more democratic.
“We have technology today that enables for much easier citizen engagement, and citizen engagement in a much smarter way,” he said.
Peterson said the potential applications and business models are only limited by the amount of information governments are willing to make public.
Open data sites
While the New Brunswick government is being pressured to start freeing up data for its citizens, the federal government is already moving in that direction.
The federal government announced last month that it is easing restrictions on the use of the taxpayer-funded data it makes available to the public.
The federal government’s open data portal collates 260,000 data sets that span everything from immigration statistics to mapping co-ordinates.
When Treasury Board President Tony Clement made the announcement, he said he had not heard yet of anyone doing anything creative with the federal government data made available to date. But he said the federal government was “liberalizing” the approach to opening up data.
He said the new rules would “make it easier for innovation to occur.”
Open data sites are not simply the domain of the federal government. The British Columbia government also has an open data site.
That page lists recent health data, information about visitor attendance at provincial parks and salary information for civil servants who earn more than $75,000.
What do you think about Open Data? Let me know!
The latest issue of 21inc‘s magazine 21ink was just released, and I was featured in it (talking about Propertize.ca)!
Click the image below to check out the article:
If you have any issues opening the link above, click here to download the PDF.
Also, be sure to check out Propertize.ca, and let me know what you think!
A great article was featured in today’s Telegraph-Journal on the topic of Open Data – including mentions of the T4G hosted ‘Hackathon’ event in Fredericton this Saturday!
I also got a few quotes for Propertize.ca and the Canadian Fuel Consumption Guide Application that I am also working on.
Read on for more information:
The City of Fredericton has increased public access to government data by joining the open data movement that is sweeping the country.
Open data sites have been created in major centres across Canada and now Fredericton has recently launched its own open data site where users, such as software developers, can access information, collected by the municipality, to create interesting, new applications for the Web and smartphones.
“We’re trying to encourage local developers to develop new technologies, making it freely available without any restrictions,” said Rob Lunn, co-ordinator of Geographic Information Systems for the City of Fredericton. “It’s about being transparent and offering new services … the information we are putting out, the public has already paid for it.”
Shawn Peterson, a local IT consultant, started to develop open data applications after struggling to manoeuvre through a provincial tax information database.
“If you’ve been on the government site for tax assessment, you’ll probably find that it is really complicated,” Peterson said. “Using the data out there already, I built my own application that does a lot of the leg work for you.”
After his web-based application, propertize.ca, experienced some heavy traffic, Peterson said, Service New Brunswick started sending people to his site instead of recommending the government database.
He is currently working on an application that involves vehicle fuel consumption data.
Saturday is International Open Data Day and Fredericton is one of approximately 40 cities around the world that will participate in an event titled Hackathon, a forum that encourages entrepreneurs, government officials and academics to join forces and discuss new ways to use open data.
T4G, a technology solutions organization with offices across North American, including Fredericton and Saint John, will host the event at its Fredericton office from noon until 4 p.m.
The purpose of Hackathon is to raise awareness about open data and explore how government officials can contribute and improve public services at the same time.
It can be “something as simple as garbage collection,” said Patrick Lacroix, T4G’s managing director of leadership and productivity improvement.
“If the City of Fredericton or the City of Saint John had a map for the garbage collection services and the schedule, then somebody could develop an app for your own computer or smartphone. You could get a warning the night before saying ‘Don’t forget to put out your garbage. It’s Thursday night.’”
While the goal of transparency and easy access to information is well-intentioned, some experts say open data may inadvertently reveal sensitive information.
“The dark side of this is … you didn’t intend to publish something that exposes a vulnerability, but you did. You can publish one set of data and another set of data in two different places, but when people cross-reference them, you get an insight that helps shut down the U.S. electrical grid (for example),” said Robert Austin, dean of business administration at the University of New Brunswick. Austin co-authored a case study called ‘data.gov’ which outlines the complexity of open data policies within the United States government.
“There are pretty profound philosophical differences that come up when you start talking about open data in government. A lot of it has to do with how much you trust the right thing to happen when the data comes to bear.”
Austin says he believes that ultimately open data is a good thing but freedom of information isn’t so cut and dry.
“If you’re going to do it the way the U.S. government has, you have to be OK with people taking your data, spinning it in a way that is convenient to them, and using it against you,” he said.
Lunn said that the city is cautious about what data is released and it would be unlikely any harm could come from it.
“There is always the negative side to these things. Our feeling is that there are going to be more benefits that are derived,” Lunn said.
“There is power in making your data available and people can grab it and come up with some very interesting uses.”
For anyone interesting in attending the T4G hosted event, below are links to data sets that I am interested in working with:
It’s that time of the year – Movember!
This year, I am participating, so feel free to follow along with me (and make a donation) here:
In case you do not know what it’s all about, read on:
During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces, in Canada and around the world. With their “Mo’s”, these men raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer.
On Movember 1st, guys register at Movember.com with a clean-shaven face. For the rest of the month, these selfless and generous men, known as Mo Bros, groom, trim and wax their way into the annals of fine moustachery. Supported by the women in their lives, Mo Sistas, Movember Mo Bros raise funds by seeking out sponsorship for their Mo-growing efforts.
Mo Bros effectively become walking, talking billboards for the 30 days of November. Through their actions and words, they raise awareness by prompting private and public conversation around the often ignored issue of men’s health.
At the end of the month, Mo Bros and Mo Sistas celebrate their gallantry and valor by either throwing their own Movember party or attending one of the infamous Gala Partés held around the world by Movember, for Movember.
Check out the Canadian Movember website for more information:
And if that’s not enough, you should also check out this great video:
Posted on
November 7th, 2011 in
SaintJohnShawn.com,
Videos |
No Comments
The Natural Resources Canada’s Office of Energy Efficiency (OEE) compiles and publishes estimated fuel-consumption ratings for passenger cars, light-duty pickup trucks, vans, and special purpose vehicles sold in Canada in it’s annual Fuel Consumption Guide.
Never heard of them? Well, I bet you have seen their numbers when looking at new vehicles (displayed in the window sticker):
While some people will disagree on the accuracy of estimating fuel consumption data (especially when it comes to comparing the estimates to real world usage) – there is a still great deal of useful data to work with – especially when it comes to comparing vehicles to each other.
The issue for me, however, is the same one I faced when trying to view Property Tax Assessment information in New Brunswick – the website used to view this data is very frustrating to use.
Viewing the Fuel Consumption Guide Data Online
OEE provides two links that anyone can use to work with their data:
- Viewing a list of vehicles for a specific manufacturer (by a specific vehicle type for a specific year)
- Comparing vehicles (by year, vehicle type, manufacturer, and model)
Interface Issues
I find both of the provided forms tedius to use to quickly get data for comparison purposes. Also, don’t even think about pressing the back button to change a previously selected option, it will simply force you to start over from the beginning.
The results are equally disappointing - a static table that can not be manipulated (no sorting) and very difficult to read.
Honestly, how many people would know a Class of P is a “Special Purpose Vehicle“, X is “Regular fuel”, and V is an “Automatic“?
Luckily, the Fuel Consumption data is actually available in PDF and HTML format for each year (they only show 2011 and 2010 inside the link below; but, you can change the year inside the URL to view other years):
My Alternate Interface
Before I could work on an interface, I first needed data.
Using the HTML versions above, I created an Excel spreadsheet (with a tab for each year). I then pasted in the HTML data (a very tedious process) into each tab:
I then wrote an adapter that reads the Excel spreadsheet and populates a database.
Like all government data I have ever worked with, I quickly found that the format (and those funny codes I mentioned above) change from year to year for no clear reason. This adapter then had to be updated a great deal to read the data and populate the database in a consistent format:
Once this was completed, it was easy to stub out a ASP.NET MVC3 application that reads the data and puts it into a nice grid that clearly states what the data means.
I’ve also updated it to allow for more advanced filtering and sorting – something that can easily be done from the same screen (and the back button works too)!
Try the demo!
You can try out the demo yourself by clicking here. Be sure to share this link with your friends.
Ideas Going Forward
While the application is generally functional, I think there is still a great deal that can still be done!
One idea was to factor in more “realistic consumption numbers” – perhaps adding 2-3 L/100KM to each number, and allowing users to enter the price of gas in their area to generate more realistic “cost per year” numbers.
Another idea was to introduce some graphs to make things more visually appealing. I think some comparisons between manufacturers/vehicle types would be an interesting way to introduce this.
Maybe there is more open data available that could be integrated with this as well – be sure to let me know if you have ideas on this!
I’d also like to make the “Model” field into a listbox as well – to make it easier to filter the results by a list of models (opposed to limiting to specific text as exists now).
The application is also built to be localized – I just need to take some time to do it.
Add your feedback
Please comment below with your feedback (good or bad) along with any ideas or suggestions for improvement!
Additional Information
For more information on the Fuel Consumption Guide, check out the following links:
Our daughter received a gift recently, a collection of short stories about Disney princesses, that came from Costco.
While all of the stories are quite short, one in particular came with a surprise alternate ending.
Although when I say “alternate ending”, I really mean PilBooks made a printing mistake and shipped it anyway – similar to what Walter Hobbs did in the movie Elf.
Not surprisingly, his character was on the “naughty list”…
Continue on to read the story of the Little Mermaid (with the secret Costco ending)!
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on
July 25th, 2011 in
Fail,
SaintJohnShawn.com |
6 Comments
Propertize.ca has been updated to version 3.4, and it is rocking some new features:
- Create an account or login using OpenID (will be used to support saving searches in the future).
- Friendly Share/Print buttons are now available on most pages.
- The ability to include nearby streets is now stable.
- Additional “popup” help is now available on the landing page (by popular request).
- The search results page now lists all of the streets included in the search (helpful when including nearby streets).
- The Average Last Sale Price is included on the search results page.
- Lots of tiny bug fixes.
As always, updates to Propertize.ca are driven by your feedback – so let me know what you think!
I wanted to highlight a blog post from Sarah Craig yesterday about a neighbourhood meeting that got out of hand due to the antics of Councillor Bruce Court (our Ward 4 representative):
Initially, I was pleased they took the time to show up, and they did exactly as they said they would by sitting at the back of the room and took it all in. It was a fairly orderly meeting despite the unexpected high turnout, lack of an agenda, and high tension in the room. Overall, people were not thrilled with the re-zoning application, and as all these things tend to do, it devolved at one point into a group vent about poor snow removal and city services. We settled on a path forward, people volunteered, and we have an action plan. True grassroots organization at its best. That was until I heard shouting.
As people were mingling at the end of the meeting taking the rare opportunity to meet and catch up with neighbours I heard a lady yell “you assured me it wouldn’t happen and it did!” I looked over to see a petite dark haired women and our East Side Representative, Councillor Bruce Court, in a very heated exchange. He was in her face, yelling at her, and pointing a finger at her nose. This went on for a minute or so, when eventually he put his hand, palm out, in her face and walked toward the front of the room. He spoke to the women who organized the meeting, brought her back to the petite dark-haired women, where he continued to yell at her for a further 30 seconds. He put up his hand again in her face, and walked out. She followed him and continued to yell, “You’re not listening to me”.
Check out Sarah’s post for more details along with pictures!
The Telegraph-Journal had an interesting article yesterday on a city staff report declaring that cancelling private garbage collection would save the city money:
The city should take full responsibility of trash collection services and scrap the contract with private haulers, a move that would save the municipality $500,000 annually, a city staff report says.
In their review of expenses, city staffers compared the current costs of trash collection to the costs of fully contracting out the service or taking it over completely. They based their calculations on submissions from private haulers who estimated what they would charge if they assumed total control of curbside pickup.
Too bad it doesn’t add up in short term or long term.
In the short term, the city would need to pay $794,000 up-front to buy new trucks AND hire more city workers (remember that pension issue – the one where we, tax-payers, are paying for everyone else’s pension):
Long term is where it get’s even more ridiculous, consider the following:
The final report concludes that while the two alternatives are comparable in price, hiring private contractors to service all 53 routes is not viable largely because the city can’t lay off crews who are responsible for trash collection.
The city’s contract with the outside workers union, CUPE Local 18, guarantees 293 jobs will stay on the payroll until mid-2014, a provision the employee group secured when negotiating pension concessions. This means if the city fully contracted out the collection service, it would have to move the crews somewhere else.
Because the city has a contract the specifies a staffing level number (which make no sense at all) until 2014, they somehow decided that this still saves money in the long term – even the costs are cheaper for going private (factoring in the extra costs for new trucks and employees).
Consider if we keep things as-is until the contract expires.
The city could then switch to fully private garbage collection afterwards – reducing staffing numbers, reducing pension liability, and maintaining a reliable contract cost.
This shouldn’t be a difficult decision, contracting out garbage collection is good for Saint John taxpayers!
Today, an opinion piece captured it perfectly:
Council must weigh full service costs
The growing debate over garbage collection in Saint John illustrates the appeal and the drawbacks of short-term thinking. The city contracts out garbage pickup on 19 routes, while 34 routes are handled by municipal workers. At council’s request, city staffers have investigated two alternatives to this arrangement, from contracting out every route to abandoning private contracts.
These options are comparable in price, but in the short term, the city’s labour agreement with outside workers prohibits layoffs. Even if the city were to shift all garbage collection to a private contractor, it would still be paying the wages of municipal garbage crews until mid-2014. So, city staffers are recommending that the city take over all garbage collection. The appeal of this proposal is the potential savings it would create, which staffers have estimated at $500,000 a year. The drawback is that to service those 19 extra routes, the city would need to spend $794,000 on new trucks and hire four additional workers.
Even on the face of it, this is no bargain. The current garbage contract does not expire until September, 2011. A retooled municipal garbage service would not be available for eight to 10 months, taking the city into 2012. The capital expense of buying new trucks would write off the first year and a half of savings, so council would not see any net benefits until the 2014 fiscal year. Maybe we’re missing something, but that’s roughly the same time as the city’s guarantee of 293 jobs for outside workers is set to expire. Wouldn’t it be just as easy to plan for a smaller municipal workforce in 2014, supported by more private contractors?
Every time council increases the municipal workforce, it drives up the city’s annual financial obligations, from basic payroll costs to its pension commitments. Council must have a full accounting of the labour costs associated with this proposal before it can make an informed decision.
Councillors should review the city’s last three budgets. The cost of in-house labour and servicing the municipal pension deficit make up 60 per cent or more of the city’s spending.
If council wants to save more money in the long run, that is where it needs to cut.
——————-
More great comments from the original article:
John Campbell wrote:
was the cost of pensions for city employees taken into account
owen meaney wrote:
What a joke. The alleged savngs are based on the minimum worker contract, which is one of the main problems. The next contract must remove this clause, and everyone knows it. Keep the 6 workers and have them fill potholes until 2014, then deal with it. In the meantime, the current contract allows for no pension liability. Oh, and the casual mention of spending big money on trucks, and decreasing service. Silly. Imagine trying to get through the south end while garbage pickup is done through the day. Now imagine the trash all over the place because of biweekly pickup. This is a stupid idea, and should be treated like a stupid idea. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Ella H wrote:
Operating costs drop by 500K….. and on the other side…buy three new trucks, costing about $794,000, and hire four workers ..and those four new workers come with employment expenses – pension,benefits,employment taxes.
So just how is the city SAVING anything? I see an INCREASE in costs to the city.
Colin H wrote:
The city’s contract with the outside workers union, CUPE Local 18, guarantees 293 jobs will stay on the payroll until mid-2014″
I hope the city staff report looks at what the potential savings of contracting it all could be after 2014 (assuming the city doesn’t lock itself foolishly in to a minimum number of employees again). Does there cost projections include fully loaded wage costs including bebfits? Can taking over the contracted out routes require hiring of more city staff and the long term costs of that or can it be done with existing staff?
I look forward to reading the report seeing how the costs and potential savings were estimated.
Riverhill Drive wrote:
Let’s be realistic about what this is all about. The Mayor and his brother are doing anything they can to support unions at the expense of the tax payers. Do you wonder why they asked unionized employees to prepare an analysis that could lead to the addition of more members in their local? The answer was defined from the beginning. I have to give the preparers of the report credit for at least putting honest numbers in their report. Anyone with a calculator though can tell the private route is a much better way to go in the long term. Until we elect a council that is qualified to manage things, this is what is going to keep happening. It’s embarrassing that they think they can convince us of this stuff.
