Geospatial information service created for Nelson and RDCK
By Nelson Daily Editor
By Timothy Schafer, The Nelson Daily
Nelson will soon be part of the geospatial information service family in the regional district.
Along with 18 other Regional District of Central Kootenay directors, the Nelson director on the board, Mayor John Dooley, voted in favour of establishing taxation for the service.
The geospatial service is nothing more than what the regional district has had for the last 10 years, said Jim Gustaffson, chief administrative officer for the regional district.
Since they established the service, the RDCK has built up a rather sophisticated system that provides all kinds of data — from maps to demographics — to the regional district, to the public and to outside agencies.
Geospatial used to be funded under one heading of development services, but now it is under two: GIS and the sustainable living service. Nelson opted out of the sustainable living service.
“There will be no change in the service (or taxation), per se, all this does is separate one service into two,” Gustaffson said.
Residents of all areas will now pay up to $0.0315 on $1,000 of net taxable value of land and improvements, to a maximum of $246,000 annually as a requisition for the service.
Approval for the new service came from the electors of all RDCK areas — save for Castlegar which opted out of the service — and had been granted through the alternative approval process, according to Dawn Attorp, general manager of corporate administration for the RDCK.
Out of a total of 37,374 electors, only 301 petitions were received against the proposal. However, there had to be 10 per cent of the electors — or 3,737 people — required to sign the elector response form to prevent the board from proceeding with establishing the service without the assent of the electors.
