Be Spatial 2017
May 3rd, 2017
We continue to climb the hill and the top is in sight!
Overall Vision
• The Ontario Digital Cadastre Corporation (ODCC) is a Land Surveyor owned and operated
company that exists to create and maintain a province-wide cadastre, together with a
survey records index and related data repository. We are in the business of discovering
opportunities for surveyor’s data that will generate immediate and ongoing revenue
from traditional and non-traditional clients, ultimately leading to the emergence of our
cadastre. We also provide centralized intellectual property, licensing and contract
management to surveyors and related industries.
• ODCC has the knowledge, skill and authority to create and deliver a digital cadastre. We
are responding to a need that is not presently satisfied; namely, providing fair and wideranging access to, protection of, and maintenance of the cadastral fabric of Ontario, with
pricing and licensing that is attractive to all potential users, all while honouring the
significant intellectual property held by individual surveyors. Surveyors have a longstanding historical professional credibility and establishing a digital cadastre fits perfectly
within our public protection mandate and preserves and expands the role that surveyors
play in society.
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Vision Statement
• We are the authoritative source of knowledge on the spatial extent of
property rights, restrictions and responsibilities, delivering
sustainable social, economic and cultural benefits
Mission/Objective
• Develop and maintain the first spatially accurate Ontario-wide
cadastre
• Increase the real and perceived value of surveying and cadastral
products and services
• Provide access to surveyor’s information in convenient and innovative forms
• Engage all surveyors in Ontario to deliver new products and services
• Create and maintain a province-wide survey record index
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Values/Principles
• Protect the public interest (provision of transparent and reliable
information for reasonable fees)
• Honour intellectual property
• Build trust and collaboration with clients and suppliers
• Build value for surveyors
• Build knowledge and capacity for surveyors to ensure skills availability
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Our Clients
• Meet the needs of clients that cannot easily go to a single survey firm
for solutions (e.g. clients requiring access to information across broad
geographic areas in Ontario)
• Look for new products and services that have not been met by the
traditional products and services provided by surveyors
• Services provided with integrity and transparency
• Clients can range from all levels of government to industry (no
limitations other than as noted in the suppliers restrictions)
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The Strategy
• Leverage existing products and services of Ontario Land Surveyors
• Build the MPAC relationship as a key first adopter and partner
• Keep ODCC lean and effective (i.e. very limited staff) and rely on OLS
member services where possible
• Retain IP and licensing where possible to ensure long term sustainability
• Grow slow and limit marketing at the outset ensuring ability to deliver as
promised
• Use alternative delivery mechanism where surveyors cannot deliver (e.g.
no participating surveyors in a particular geographic area) to ensure
comprehensive coverage
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The Digital Cadastre
• Comprehensive coverage of the province with varying accuracy that is described by
individual point/boundary metadata allowing systems and users to understand
relationships of positions to boundaries – continually improving accuracy
• Short-term is a surrogate for assessed tenure extents with varying described accuracy;
long term provides extent knowledge of all rights and restrictions impacting real property
• Based on a modern common described referencing system (e.g. NAD83 CSRS)
• Allows users a variety of services ranging from low accuracy (like today’s Ontario
ParcelTM) queries (e.g. distance to property; polygon overlays) to higher accuracy queries
(e.g. distance to property line)
• Provides transactional (low cost) services to higher costs subscription based services
• Meets all uses requiring knowledge of property extents (e.g. proximity alerts for
equipment, distance to nearest fire hydrant, distance to services)
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Proposed Governance/Ownership Model
Survey Companies
(C of A Holders)
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ODCC
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New Company
Provides products and services to
MPAC, municipalities, Utility
Companies, etc.
Maintains the Cadastre
Develops new products and service
lines
Markets products and services
Provides profits to Joint Venture
members
Own and control ODCC
•
•
•
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May 3rd, 2017
owners of ODCC (limited to 40)
Pulls together surveyors to deliver products/services
Establishes standards for delivery of products
Supplies surveyors’ products to the Joint Venture
Provides Access for products and services to surveyors for use and resale
Distributes profits to surveyors
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The Way Forward
• Transfer Ownership of ODCC from the AOLS to a group of surveyors who
can focus on business development
• Create the Joint Venture
• Improve the Assessment View of the Ontario ParcelTM using OrthoPhotography in areas covered by Basic Index Mapping to bring the entire
province up to a basic level of spatial accuracy
• Adopt a series of CAD standards (some of which will align with existing
municipal requirements)
• Start integrating surveyor’s CAD files to improve timeliness of delivery and
accuracy of the product
• Once the Digital Cadastre is at a reasonable state, expand the offering with
additional data and develop new products and services in partnership with
Value Added Resellers
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The ODCC/Joint Venture Advantage
• Timelier updates to the Cadastre since surveyors can provide CAD
files in advance of registration without cumbersome data entry
• Increased accuracy due to the use of surveyor provided coordinates
• Availability of metadata related to boundaries that allow users to
understand the fitness of use of the data for their purposes
• Fair use of intellectual property and certainty that intellectual
property is appropriate and protected
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Challenges/Questions
• Surveyors are expecting to be compensated reasonably for the provision of data and their efforts
in maintaining the Cadastre. They want to provide reasonable fair use policies for users while at
the same time protecting the value of their products. What does fair use look like to you? How
does this fit with municipalities that have adopted open data policies?
• Despite efforts to find a way forward with Teranet, ODCC has not yet been able to find a
satisfactory arrangement. This means the focus for the Cadastre will be on boundaries provided
by surveyors and an assessment view of the tenure. What challenges does this present to clients
and what are the best ways of dealing with this?
• Some municipalities have maintained their own fabric and have indicated a willingness to provide
it as a better starting point. What conditions might be required to make this work?
• ODCC wants to focus on getting the Cadastre right and then add new data, products and services.
Determining what data and when to add it will require significant thought. Are there particular
data and services that make sense to add sooner? Are there particular data sets that
municipalities would like to provide and see incorporated?
• Other thoughts?
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