Description: This layer represents current city boundaries within Los Angeles County. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Works provides the most current shapefiles representing city boundariesand city annexationson the Los Angeles County GIS Data Portal. True, legal boundaries are only determined on the ground by surveyors licensed in the State of California. Numerous records are freely available at the Land Records Informaitonwebsite, hosted by the Department of Public Works.Principal attributes include:CITY_NAME: represents the city's name.CITY_TYPE: may be used for definition queries; "Unincorporated" or "City".FEAT_TYPE: identifies the feature that each polygon represents:Land - This value is used for polygons representing the land masses, if you want to see only land features on your map.Pier - This value is used for polygons representing piers along the coastline. One example is the Santa Monica Pier.Breakwater - This value is used for polygons representing man-made barriers that protect the harbors.Water - This value is used for polygons representing navigable waters inside the harbors and marinas.3NM Buffer - This value is used for polygons representing the three seaward nautical miles within the cities' limits, per the Submerged Lands Act.POPULATION: Information in this field is supplied by Mark Greninger (mgreninger@cio.lacounty.gov).Reference Date: 2013
Copyright Text: This data is maintained by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. Contacts: Mark Greninger, 626-458-7113, MGreninger@dpw.lacounty.gov ; Thierno Diallo, 626-458-6920, tdiallo@dpw.lacounty.gov; Michael Maung, 626-458-7078, mmaung@dpw.lacounty.gov
Description: The National Hydrography Database (NHD) is used to map streams and other water conveyance features such as canals, pipes, etc. These features are used for mapping, flow modelling, etc.
Description: The Office of the Assessor maintains assessment records of real and personal property in the County of Los Angeles. Many of these records are available for sale. The data is available in the form of CD-ROM, DVD, hardcopy, and on-line access. The Office of the Assessor also offers a GIS Tax Parcel Base Map.Some layers included (not an exhaustive list):parcel boundary map (shapefile format)local rollLA County wall mappublicly owned parcelssales listunsecured rolland labels (for mailings)A discussion of parcel accuracyOccasionally questions about the spatial accuracy of parcel information come up. In general, it is important to note that the parcels are for tax assessment purposes only, come from many sources, some historical, and are not necessarily survey grade. That said, they are in general extremely reliable.Here is a longer description from Emilio Solano, head of the Assessor Mapping and GIS Services:The very short answer is this: our data is in its majority accurate within a couple of feet, in other cases will not be so accurate.The issue of accuracy when applied to assessor’s data is very subjective. Our data is very accurate if we consider that all the information matches recorded information, we try our best to keep recent data as it was recorded, and older data gets slightly adjusted to match the most recent data. Another factor to consider is that about one third of the total number of new parcels created every year comes from deeds, not subdivision maps, that is, there is not, in the majority of the cases, any new survey data, more likely general descriptions of where the new boundaries should exist, or references to adjacent properties, even calls to documents recorded many years ago, referring to them just by the document number. In those cases we have to consider the intent of the owner when describing the property in the deed.Another couple of factors that have an impact in the accuracy of our data comes from the fact that we assembled this vast amount of information with digital data provided from at least a dozen of cities, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Torrance, etc. plus all the data gathered by LACO DPW in CAD format. We had to compile all that data, rectify it and adjusted as needed, always keeping in mind that the integrity of the data should be maintained by matching RECORDED information. Another factor is that the data was also coming from tens of thousands of individual recordings, it wasn’t as clean cut as when you look at a single subdivision, no matter how big, where every line is clearly identified by a bearing and a distance within a perfectly traced boundary. Our original data sources even go back as far as remainder pieces of land described by Spanish grants and ranchos, section land plus newer surveys.Even though we always input our data based on survey records using COGO tools, whenever possible, a lot of the data is not. Considering all that, our GIS layer is by far, the most accurate data set of its size available anywhere in the county, both in positional accuracy, and conformity to the information provided by legal sources.All that being said, the resulting fact is that, as mark mentioned, in some areas our data will be very accurate, in others it won’t. The most important thing to keep in mind is that given that our responsibility is to reflect property information as recorded, we do not use anything else as a guide, for example we never use an aerial image to change the position of a line just because it doesn’t fall on top of a fence shown on a photo; remember that many people build their fenced, especially the ones made out of concrete blocks, a couple of inches inside the property boundary because is difficult to dig a trench along an existing wooden or wire fence, now multiply those little variances spread out over a 4000+ square miles of land and you will get a picture of what we are up to.That’s why we continually try to stress in anybody using our data that, if they need total accuracy they will need to hire a surveyor to get it. Our 11 by 17 maps are our only official source of information and should only be used for assessment purposes, or in the case of other uses, just for information, to get an accurate idea of how close to the real location a line could be.
Copyright Text: Emilio Solano Los Angeles County Assessor 500 W Temple Street Los Angeles, CA 90012 esolano@assessor.lacounty.gov
