The Village of Port Washington North will partner with the Town of North Hempstead to develop a new mapping system to keep track of road assets around the village.
The project is made possible due to a $270,000 state grant to the Town of North Hempstead for economic development, announced on Dec. 14.
“The village is really excited the town was able to take a lead on this project and include us,” Village of Port Washington North Mayor Robert Weitzner said. “We’re really looking forward to the data, we think it’ll be a significant asset to our village.”
Weitzner said the mapping project will expand on the village’s already existing Geographic Information System, or GIS, to include all major pieces of infrastructure including all village roads, and surface level features such as signs and light posts.
The Village of Port Washington North was chosen for the $270,000 Joint Municipal Asset Mapping Project to build on an intermunicipal agreement with the Town of North Hempstead that has been ongoing for over 10 years, Weitzner said.
“They’re already familiar with our streets,” he said. “Together we will be able to take all of this information and input it into an already existing GIS,”
The new project moves the village’s current GIS map beyond cataloging just the locations of these assets, and will include the condition and even age of all surface features located on Port Washington roads.
“The concept really is to have a Google Maps-type vehicle that would go out and actually tape and scan all of our streets,” he said. “As the vehicle is scanning it would be able to record, and I believe even rate, signage, hydrants lamp posts, and things of that nature street by street.”
This will allow workers to search specific roads and points of infrastructure to instantly access data regarding the surrounding area.
“You can pull up a given home, and it’ll give you data of what’s in the vicinity of that home,” Weitzner said. “So if someone says there is a street light out, we can look at everything that’s in that area.”
Weitzner added that Port Washington North is currently one of the only villages in the town with this type of system in place.
The $270,000 grant was just one of four awarded to the Town of North Hempstead when it was named as the recipient of four state Regional Economic Development Council Initiative awards. The total award grant to the town is $757,000.
“These grants will enable the town to address several environmental initiatives that are critically important to the Town’s environmental health, as well as other projects that will improve our infrastructure and enhance our communities,” said North Hempstead Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth. “The more than $757,000 in funding will serve as a great economic engine for our town.”
The town will use a $316,250 grant to generate a Surface Water Priority Action Zone for 20 villages within the North Hempstead border, to create a GIS map for septic systems.
A $122,200 grant will be used to prepare a town-wide environmental master plan, for surface and ground water and habitat protection, as well as climate change strategies and even include concept designs for an 83-acre environmental and waterfront recreational beach parks with about 6,000 feet of shoreline and 200 acres of wetlands and meadow habitat.
The last $49,500 grant will be used by the town to create a North Hempstead cultural master plan, to assist the town in prioritizing arts initiatives, to raise awareness and visibility of local artists beyond just the community level.
Weitzner said the village is excited to expand their work with the Town of North Hempstead.
He said the village is “pretty forward-thinking with our roads and GIS system, so it was pretty intriguing opportunity for us to work with them.”
