Tree Permitting

| Kevin McMaster

Did you know that any Washington DC resident or contractor who wishes to plant, prune, or remove a tree within the public right of way must first obtain permission from the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) and the Urban Forestry Division? However, knowing when, where, and how to get the right permit for tree work in DC can be a complicated process. Fortunately, DDOT has a new resource available to make it easy! Check out the Tree Permitting Hub site to answer all tree permitting questions.

SymGEO built the Tree Permitting site using ArcGIS Hub technology, which leverages ArcGIS Online mapping and graphic examples to help explain what type of permit is needed based on tree location, property boundaries, and tree size. The site also explains the benefits of the Income Contingent Hazardous Tree Mitigation Program that provides assistance with the removal of a hazardous tree on an owner’s private property.

As an example of “good to know” information, Washington D.C. is unique in that it has dedicated park space along most streets. This “parking” area is generally used for landscaping, retaining walls, trees, and other greenery. Just like on private land, all landscape elements (including trees) in this parking area are the responsibility of the homeowner to maintain. On the other hand, all trees located in the public “sidewalk” area are the responsibility of the city to maintain. However, these trees may be negatively impacted by development or construction projects and need to be considered before projects begin.

Talk to our industry experts today if your agency or organization is interested in community engagement with the power of Esri’s ArcGIS Hub or mapping with ArcGIS Online – SymGEO is here to help!

Tree Preservation

| Kevin McMaster

Did you know that trees are so important to Washington DC that they are protected by the Urban Forest Preservation Act and the Tree Canopy Protection Act? This means that before performing any excavation or construction activity on private property, it is important to consider any potential impacts to the trees on site. To facilitate this process, SymGEO is proud to help DDOT launch a new resource, the Tree Preservation Hub site, for property owners and construction companies to identify which trees need to be protected and how to best take care of them during home renovations or new construction projects.

Built using ArcGIS Hub technology, this site leverages ArcGIS Online mapping and graphic examples to help explain what type of permit or protection plan is needed based on estimated tree size. Tree sizes were estimated using LiDAR processing, which in turn is used to estimate the critical root zone and structural root zones that need to be protected during construction. Modeling several hundred thousand trees at the same time has its challenges; however, ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Enterprise, Arcade expressions, and hosted image services were used to efficiently capture and share the modeling results.

Talk to our industry experts today if your agency or organization is interested in community engagement with the power of Esri’s ArcGIS Hub or data processing with ArcGIS Pro – SymGEO is here to help!

Server, Portal and Enterprise

| Kevin McMaster

Publishing, organizing, and making data accessible on the web can be tricky business in an ever-changing technical landscape. Not surprisingly, there isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” solution due to the number of infrastructure variables involved in setting up your own data server.

ArcGIS Enterprise, a relatively new product offering from Esri, is designed to help streamline the process and provide maximum flexibility on deployment scenarios. Enterprise is a full-featured mapping and analytics platform that includes a powerful GIS server, plus dedicated web-based GIS infrastructure to organize and share your work.

Enterprise includes:

An enterprise GIS portal for organizing and sharing GIS assets.
A data store for secure storage and fast access to maps and data.
Optional GIS capabilities for real-time imagery and large data processing.
Even more capabilities when you opt for GIS server extensions.
An enterprise geodatabase, the ultimate in geodata storage and management.

Esri offers a number of solution components that are ready to be implemented; both in the cloud through Amazon Web Service (AWS) or Microsoft Azure, or on premise using your own server.

Based on our testing, the most easily accessible implementation is achieved using the Builder solution. However, even that implementation has a few tricky steps that involved manually configuring web adapters, setting bindings, web context URLs, and static public IP addresses.

Fortunately, when it does error out, the error messages are usually quite specific and pointed us in the right direction.

There is also a very active internet community ready to jump in and help on this topic. When all else fails, Esri tech support is the most patient, educational crew around based on our experience of several hours of configuration trouble-shooting.

Once Enterprise is successfully installed, user groups, permissions, logins and account set up is relatively easy. This allows each user the required level of access, and complete control over the branding and visibility of your data.

If you’re ready to set up Enterprise, Server, or Portal, let SymGEO know as our highly trained technical staff are here to help.