Bellevue city leaders can look at data-rich maps to see where historic floodplains are, where residents are paying too much in rent and the annexation history of the city.
And now, for the first time, you can too.
A series of interactive maps that explore many facets of Bellevue is available to the public thanks to the work of a geospatial technology services team — essentially a group of data-miners who can relate that to easily digestible maps.
“While web mapping has been out for a while, the city started pushing this web map gallery pretty recently,” said Scott Gebhardt, geospatial technology services supervisor.
Genhardt and his team of eight, along with several support developers, are undertaking the data-driven maps as part of Bellevue city government’s efforts to increase transparency and create a more responsive government. The team uses geographic information services technology to create data maps. Some maps have been available for years on the city’s website, but improved technology has allowed the team to expand what they can show and how they can present it.
Claude Iosso, digital communications coordinator for Bellevue, said the maps are a way to bring good information to city residents.
“This is the perfect example of information we’ve had for years but haven’t really been able to make accessible,” he said. “We have the capability now, we have better software now, and we can tell the story in a better way.”
While the data has always been available to the public, it was tucked away in files in City Hall or in dizzying spreadsheets and not easily accessible to the average citizen.
The maps follow closely on the heels of Bellevue’s “Open Portal,” a user-friendly site that allows residents to get data about their government and do things such as track crime statistics, economic growth and traffic concerns.
The crown jewel of the interactive map gallery is the Comprehensive Plan map, which goes into detail about the city’s plan for the future.
The comprehensive plan series of maps starts simple, showing the areas in Bellevue where mixed-land-use zoning exists (Downtown, Bel-Red, Crossroads, etc.) and where the borders of distinct neighborhoods are drawn.
“It looks at forecasted growth over the next 20 years and how we can maintain our quality of life,” Gebhardt said.
From there, the neighborhoods are broken down by which are “severely cost burdened” by housing costs (more than 20 percent of residents in the Eastgate neighborhood are paying more than 50 percent of their income on housing). Other maps include traffic forecasts through 2035, fish-bearing streams in city limits and maps of all parks and trails throughout Bellevue.
“I’d say what we are doing here is a lot more extensive than other municipalities,” Gebhardt said. “There’s definitely a trend in Bellevue to be on the cutting edge of technology, and the technology to make these maps has matured a lot in the last few years.”
The maps aren’t static, Gebhardt adds. Bellevue residents expect more, so the maps are updated when new data is available. If someone wants to see the data on the map, they can manipulate it to find exactly what they want, and a link on the sidebar will provide a link to that chapter of the city’s comprehensive plan.
The maps are also designed to be “agnostic,” or compatible with any browser and mobile device.
The geospatial technology services team isn’t done yet with its job of lifting the veil on city government data.
“I’d like to expand this,” Gebhardt said. “There’s a lot more information to push put there, and a lot more data we have. The only limiting factor for us is time and resources.”
