Report for Geographic Policy and Coordination, Victoria, 1996

A LAND INFORMATION VISION FOR VICTORIA

Prof. Ian Williamson
Sponsored by Geographic Policy and Coordination, Victoria

Objective

To develop a vision and milestones to achieve the vision, for the use and management of land parcel related spatial data (here after termed land information) in Victoria in ten years.

While the primary focus of the vision is on land parcel data, the vision recognises that to be useful and effective, land parcel data needs to be integrated with or utilise other appropriate components of the State's digital map base (SDMB), and particularly the topographic data.

This vision must complement the other visions being prepared by the Victorian Government as part of the development of a holistic vision for the management of spatial information in Victoria. The other visions include:

• Environment and Heritage
• Industry Development
• Socio-Economic Planning
• Intermodal Transport
• Emergency Response

The users of land information

The focus of the vision is users of the land information, such use inceasing dramatically over the next decade. Users can be anyone who have an interest in the land, have responsibility for managing an interest or are interested in land from a commercial, environmental or social perspective. The next decade will see a dramatic increase in the availability and ease of use of land information.

One of the major trends in the use of land information over the last decade has seen the Land Titles Office move away from a focus on only servicing the land market, to the supply of land information in a more generic sense. This trend will continue. In future the primary function of the automated land titles system (ALTS) will be the provision of land information, with the land market being a key factor in updating the ALTS.

The Land Titles Office or any new organisation which assumes its traditional responsibilities must continue to move from a relatively narrow land market focus to a land information focus serving a mass market.

The traditional users of land information include:

• property owners
• lessees of Crown land
• local government
• State Government
• Australian Taxation Office
• utilities including TELSTRA, OPTUS, Foxtel and gas, water and electricity companies
• land managers
• mining companies
• land developers, real estate agents, surveyors, solicitors, banks, insurance companies

The traditional uses of land information include:

• land market (buying, selling, leasing and mortgaging interests in land)
• land use planning
• land valuation
• land development
• land subdivision
• council rates and land tax
• facilities management
• using the core data set (DCDB) in the State's spatial data infrastructure to support a very wide range of local, state, regional and national government activities. The data sets are also used differently at different local, state, regional and national levels.

The following uses and users are growing rapidly and will continue to grow over the next decade:

• the GIS industry which is integrating land information with a wide range of other geographic information and developing new products and services
• banks, insurance companies, financial institutions and business sector
• emergency services
• service and recreational industries
• transport (road networks)
• asset management
• demographic analyses and marketing
• environmental management
• direct marketing and strategic business decision making
• the ability to integrate land information with topographic and environmental data to improve the cadastral or land tenure pattern across the State. This will result in improved subdivision patterns but also land consolidation to resolve inappropriate and environmentally poor historic subdivision patterns, especially in rural areas.

In summary we will see a move from land information being driven by the Public Sector to being driven by the Private Sector with a strong user focus.

The future IT, multi-media and communications environment

The State's spatial data infrastructure is a key component in the development of the Government's IT and multi-media strategies. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are a sub-set of information technology with the digital cadastral data base (DCDB) being the State's key spatial data set. As such the implementation of any vision for the development, management and distribution of spatial data and land information is heavily dependent on and will parallel developments in IT, multi-media and communications technologies in Victoria.

In developing this vision I have assumed the following technological scenario in ten years:

• Australian society will live in a digital IT environment. Electronic signatures will be well developed and widely used.
• the vast majority of homes will have access to digital information with the INTERNET being the most probable communications technology, however it will have to change significantly if it is to survive. A better charging mechanism needs to be found for users and a better policy framework developed by governments.
• all land parcel related spatial data will be digital, albeit many users will still require paper products.
• powerful computers with imbedded multi-media and GIS will be common place in homes, however the GIS functionality will be transparent to most users. The difference between computers and television sets will disappear with these two systems being combined to form multi-media consoles. In one respect GIS as we now know it will disappear, with the emphasis being on transparent spatial functionality for specific uses and tasks. Spatial analysis will just be another task undertaken by a data base system.
• users will not want access to different data bases as much as access to integrated data sets designed to serve specific business or user requirements.
• data bases will accommodate both textual and spatial data transparently with data stored in virtual data bases adopting the warehousing concept. Sophisticated "browsers" will be a highlight of future systems with these allowing users to view a wide range of spatial data with ease. We will "surf" the range of available spatial data sets using global data dictionaries.
• future computer power will allow very large spatial data bases to be manipulated and accessed with ease.
• spatial technologies, GIS and queries of spatial data will be transparent to the user.
• satellite positioning (GPS) will become very common and low cost, albeit centimetre accuracy will still not be achieved without expert input. We should see wrist watch receivers in a few years. Position or spatial location at the metre level will become transparent to the user.
• portable computers having large data bases, having GPS position and being connected to the INTERNET or other data bases by advanced telecommunications systems will be common.
• mobile computing and mobile GIS will be common with access to data bases via sophisticated communications technologies.
• digital maps will be replaced by digital models of reality, although "maps" will still be able to be generated if required.
• the concepty of different "layers" in the State Digital Map base will be replaced by a digital model of reality. DCDBs and Digital Topographic Data Bases DTDBs will disappear as independent data sets.

A users' vision

Land information will be available from a remote terminal or computer over the INTERNET or similar technology in a home, bank, insurance company, real estate office, solicitors office, surveyors office or local government office in real time. This will include accessing title and ownership details, mortgage details, restrictions, caveats, easements etc, survey plans and field notes, survey control information, value, land use and land use zoning, land tax, local government rates, utility charges (electricity, water, telephone, cable TV, INTERNET etc). It will also be possible to combine such land information with other data sets. There will be a charge for accessing most data although access will be at a cost which will promote wide use in the community. The spatial data bases will be sufficiently sophisticated and flexible for different users to access different products and to manipulate data with ease, albeit the emphasis will be on accessing products designed to serve specific user or business needs rather than independent data bases. These products will be developed by data vendors.

1. There will be a growth in `community GIS'. These systems will permit home users to browse land information, such as land values, land use, utilities and land ownership details, in their local community.
2. Increasingly the land parcel will become the new `geography' in a similar way that post codes have become the basis of much demographic, economic and social analysis. Increasingly more data will be attached to land parcels as the manipulation and management of very large data bases inproves.
3. Large easily accessed data sets will be available for all parcels, land owners, mortgages, street addresses, land use and zoning, and land values, with the ability to integrate them with other data sets. Data vendors will add land occupiers to data sets and combine them with many other data sets to provide products for business, banks, insurance companies, mass marketing and similar uses. Issues of privacy, ownership and responsibility of accuracy will need to be addressed. Data vendors will play a major role in integrating data sets and developing new spatial products.
4. Mortgages will be able to be established electronically in real time.
5. Land transfers and mortgages will be updated in the ALTS immediately upon settlement through remote terminals, subject to security restrictions and fees. Due to the ease of searching information about a land parcel, transfers etc will be able to be completed within days as compared to weeks at present. The `mystery' will be taken out of land transfer with the purchaser being able to confirm that the purchaser is indeed the owner of the land parcel.
6. The land development process should become much more efficient since many of the current steps which take weeks will be able to be completed in real time or at least in hours or days. As a result land development processes which today take months will be able to be completed in weeks or days. Obviously this does not relate to the time to construct buildings, roads and associated infrastructure, but relates to the time for straight forward approvals, and the survey and land title aspects.
7. The street or property address will be the primary identifier to access information about land parcels. However other identifiers will develop in the near future as a result of new technologies, such as small portable satellite positioning systems which will become much more readily available, even in a watch. Consequently an increasingly used identifier will be the spatial location (coordinate) of the parcel however this will be transparent to the user. A major effort will need to be given to standardising geographic names, street addresses, suburbs and localities, post codes etc over the next few years.
8. Conflict resolution will be a key responsibility of the State's land information system to support the resolution of boundary definition problems, encroachment of buildings, disputes regarding adverse possession and title disputes. However with the improved systems the incidence of disputes should significantly reduce.

A technical vision

From a technical perspective, the parcel based land information system for the State would have the following components or attributes:

All land parcels in the State (including all private, State and Commonwealth lands, and all road reserves, rivers and reservations) and all interests in land (easements, restrictions and responsibilities) will be integrated within the State's Automated Land Titles System (ALTS).

1.  
   1. The spatial component of the land titles system will be increasingly supported by a coordinated cadastre. Cadastral mapping as we now know it will disappear and be replaced by a spatial cadastral model permitting different products at different scales to be produced. It may not be economically achievable to have a coordinated cadastre completed for the State in ten years however the strategies, standards and vision will be in place to incrementally achieve this goal.
   2. Indexes would link the textual and spatial components in a transparent manner. Each parcel would have an unique identifier which would enable cross-referencing to all other users (utilities, local government, land taxes etc). Also each land parcel in the State would have a unique street address or property identifier. However in ten years the distinction between spatial and textual data will all but have disappeared with all the land information being digital and having a spatial location.
   3. Searching of all cadastral data could be done simply by using registered proprietor's name, location, street address, coordinates etc. using "browsers" on the WWW for example.
2. The proposed vision for a coordinated cadastre for Victoria would have the following attributes:
   1. The coordinated cadastre (and DCDB) would include all separate land parcels and interests in land as described above. This would include parcels of any size however small. It would accommodate both two dimensional and three dimensional interests in land. While the legal land parcel would be the key spatial unit there would be numerous divisions and aggregations of this unit to accommodate a variety of interests, land uses, rights and restrictions in land.
   2. The DCDB would be a key component of the State's spatial data infrastructure and would be able to be fully integrated with other spatial data sets, albeit in time its role as a separate data layer in the State Digital Map Base (SDMB) will disappear..
   3. The DCDB would represent the legal definition of all interests in land, albeit boundary coordinates would not have legal significance. The use of coordinates would not upset the present hierarchy of evidence in re-establishing parcel boundaries. The DCDB or legal land parcel layer would represent a continuous digital State title plan.
   4. All cadastral surveys would be carried out on a state-wide coordinate system. All survey marks, parcel boundaries and easements would be based on this coordinate system.
   5. The coordinated cadastre and associated procedures would result in every point being able to be represented by a single set of coordinates having a range of accuracies based primarily on land use. However it must be recognised that with satellite position fixing it is just as easy to get a survey accurate coordinate in urban areas as rural areas.
   6. The State would be covered by an appropriate density of survey control marks. Maintenance of all marks in a region would be the responsibility of a regional authority or designated person.
   7. All new subdivision data would be supplied in digital form and would update the various layers of the DCDB as appropriate.
   8. The DCDB would have four layers: a proposed (at the planning approval stage) layer updated by an appropriate local or regional authority; a surveyed layer (prior to approval by the State's cadastral authority) updated by the responsible surveyor; an approved layer showing all the basic data on the cadastral framework updated by the State authority; and an approved technical layer showing all the underlying coordinate and survey data updated by the responsible authority based on the digital surveyed data.
   9. Checking of cadastral surveys (particularly subdivisions) would simply be a matter of confirming that the new survey fits the existing coordinate framework. Boundary definition would adopt the legal principles of `monuments over measurements'. Occupations which define boundaries would be adopted over title dimensions. All excesses or deficiencies in blocks would be distributed. Boundary definition would be undertaken in an integrated and holistic manner ensuring that no `slivers' or unclaimed strips were permitted in the cadastre.
3. All land information would be digital and would be fully integrated with other State spatial data sets. The DCDB will be the spatial component with ALTS being the textual component. Both components would be maintained in the same data base. There will be no paper records in the system albeit many users will still require paper copies. All data will be current and consistent.
4. All land information will be available on line across the State via remote terminals. From the perspective of users, the location of the computer data base will be irrelevant. All searching and land transactions will be undertaken personally or through private data vendors. The Government will not be involved in searching or land transactions.

   Any reforms to improve the efficiency of the land market and land development, the key activities which update the base land information in the State, should focus on reform and re-engineering of the processes as distinct from focussing on the individual activities of land transfer, subdivision, cadastral survey, mapping etc. At the same time the delivery of products and services will require re-engineering to capitalise on the new systems and technologies.

5. The cadastre and land information will be based on a spatial data engine which is a distributed model such that various custodians of GIS data sets participate within the one model but have control over their own components. The data model will include or will accommodate all spatial data sets in Victoria. Land information will be available using the open data warehouse concept through user kiosks and via the INTERNET where it can be accessed and presented using a range of user oriented software.
6. Through the use of broad band communications technologies, land information will be accessed and updated via the INTERNET or similar technology. This will permit text, images, video and the spatial cadastre to be manipulated and integrated using multi-media technologies.

An institutional vision

The land information system will have the following institutional or administrative aspects or components:

1. The system will be highly privatised. Government's role will be coordination and standards and ensuring that the social and public good components of the system are adequately supported. Government will still own the intellectual property for the core spatial data. Government will ensure that a core group of current spatial expertise is available in the State.
2. The Government coordination of land information will be a key component in supporting the State's spatial data infrastructure. The unit responsible for this will be responsible for the core components of the State Digital Map Base (SDMB), and particularly the geodetic framework, topographic map base, DCDB, geographic names and administrative boundaries.
3. The spatial and textual components of land information will be fully integrated with their integration being transparent.

   There will no longer be a Geographic Data Victoria, Land Titles Office or Office of Surveyor General. These will be replaced by one office administering parcel based land information for the State. This office will have a commercial focus and will have budget independence to ensure appropriate investment in technology and research. All title registration, land transfer, cadastral surveying and mapping, maintenance of all indexes, maintenance of the DCDB, standards and quality assurance of activities would be coordinated by this single State authority. The private sector will play a major role in maintaining and distributing this spatial data. There will however be a need for designated government officials such as a Registrar General or Surveyor General to administer a wide range of statutory and regulatory provisions.

4. There will no longer be a requirement for a centralised Land Titles Office or Office of Surveyor General since with digital data and virtual data bases the location of the data base(s) is immaterial.
5. The system will be designed to promote maximum use of land information albeit it will be based on the `user pays' principle, with arrangements to facilitate value adding by users. Institutions which do not use land information for profit will have free access to core data sets.

Following is a conceptual model of a parcel based geographic information system based on a legal cadastre. I believe that this will be the optimal institutional structure providing the core spatial data sets for the State's spatial data infrastructure. The shaded activities are one organisation, having a single public image such as `Land Information Victoria', being a single budgetary unit and having a reasonable amount of government budget independence.

An integrated vision

Within the next ten years land information will form an integral and core component of a model of our man made and natural environment. The model will build on the core cadastral and topographic data sets and will be complete across the State.

It will provide both textual and spatial data from a virtual data base using the data warehouse concept in a transparent manner to the vast majority of the population remotely across the State in real time.

The focus will be on providing land information to a mass market to support the land market, environmental management, land administration, urban systems and community information systems - basically the information required to support a modern western economy in the 21st Century. The system will support the needs of the wider public, as well as government and private sector interests, and will ensure the social and public good requirements are adequately met.

The system will be highly privatised albeit it will be coordinated by a single government unit run on a commercial basis with the intellectual property of the core data sets being retained by Government.

The Government will have in place legislation to ensure the quality of private sector provided data and to ensure social and public good requirements of land information.

This core land information will support an active spatial information industry producing products and services for the State, the nation and export.

Milestones

1997 Publication of a strategic plan for the development of the State's spatial data infrastructure, with particular emphasis on land information and the development of the cadastre

New DCDB data model implemented (integrate urban and rural data bases, compatibility with national DCDB data model, full topology)

Terms of reference for the reform and codification of property law and boundary re-definition processes completed

Institutional arrangements for land information put in place - `Land Information Victoria'

Re-engineer land transfer and land development cadastral processes

1998 Crown lands included in ALTS

All land parcels included in DCDB

All cadastral survey plans and field notes in digital form

1999 Standardisation of geographic names, street addresses, suburbs and localities, post codes completed

Land information on line to many users

2000 ALTS complete

2001 All spatial and textual land information available remotely on line

2002 Reform and codification of property law and boundary re-definition processes completed

2007 A coordinated cadastre established for all urban and high value areas in the State with a strategy to incrementally include all parcels in the State in the following ten (10) years.

Benefits of implementing the vision

Modern western economies world wide have recognised that the ready availability of land information is essential for economic development (and the operation of land markets), environmental management, and social equity and stability. This has been reinforced by cost-benefit analyses both in Australia and internationally, and by the United Nations and the World Bank with a focus on wider economic, environmental and social justifications.

The vision recognises that spatial information systems are an integral part of information technology with their development parallelling advances in multi-media, IT and communications technologies. As such the development of land information systems will support and in many cases underpin the State's VISION 2001 for growth of IT.

The vision accords with a highly privatised spatial information industry contributing to micro-economic reform, albeit social, environmental and public good objectives will need to be safeguarded. The vision will promote a more efficient, cheaper and effective land market and land development sector, and will promote the rapidly growing spatial information industry. An important benefit will be the growing export of spatial information products and services.

Issues to be addressed

Following are major issues which need to be addressed in order to achieve the vision and capitalise on technological advances outlined above:

• lack of a long term and consistent vision for development and management of the State's spatial data infrastructure. The objectives of the system and all components need to be well defined.
• an effective mechanism to ensure users and stakeholders can contribute to the ongoing strategic development of the State's spatial data infrastructure.
• lack of a complete and smarter land parcel base with each parcel having both a unique parcel identifier and unique street (urban) or property address (rural). This will require the standardisation of geographic names, street addresses, suburbs and localities, post codes etc.
• issues of access, privacy, ownership and responsibility of accuracy will inceasingly become a social and political issue and need to be addressed. Much land information which was previously available by searching paper records becomes sensitive when available "on line". More importantly land information which is not sensitive as a "stand alone" data set may become very sensitive when combined with other data sets. For example it may be appropriate to have open access to the electricity cables in a street or locality but is it wise for security reasons to have the State's complete electricity network available to all?
• confusion over legal parcels (a land parcel which has a separate land title) and properties
• the development of an institutional, administrative or contractual arrangement which allows social and public good requirements for land information to be addressed within a private sector driven environment. Simply the market is too crude a mechanism to address social, environmental and public good issues without government standards and coordination. It is to be expected that the private sector will only be interested in maintaining data which is profitable, with the possibility of data in remote or low value areas not being adequately managed. On the other hand it will be essential to ensure that there are sufficient incentives to ensure the involvement, commitment and investment of the private sector.
• property and land registration law still based on Common law with many anachronistic aspects
• a simplification of the law related to Crown land and the range of Crown tenures
• statutory models in government do not permit the management flexibility required in a business IT environment
• lack of a coordinated and integrated cadastral survey and mapping system (incorporating a complete DCDB)
• complex and anachronistic boundary re-definition regulations and practices, with cadastral boundary definition theory conflicting with government interpretation of the Transfer of Land Act
• the fragmentation of the key land administration units in government
• issues of privacy, ownership, copyright and responsibility for accuracy of land information
• lack of a pricing policy for land information including issues of wholesaling and retailing
• lack of educated and trained personnel in the spatial information sciences

Concluding Comment

The vision outlined could be considered optimistic based on developments over the past twenty years or so, however I believe it is achievable albeit chanllenging. The reality is that this area does not have a good track record of government leadership over an extended period. It is an area where rapid change has proved to be very difficult. A much greater role for the private sector offers the opportunity to achieve the vision but this will only be as a result of strong informed government leadership and the development of strategies to harness the vast array of abilities, goals and ambitions of those involved in the government, private and academic sectors.

Steps undertaken by the author in developing the vision

Based on my experience a draft vision was prepared. It was then modified as a result of input from the following interested persons:

Mr Tai On Chan, PhD student, Department of Geomatics, The University of Melbourne

Professor Peter Dale, President International Federation of Surveyors, City University , UK

Mr Graeme Dudgeon, Acting Director, Geospatial Policy and Coordination Victoria

Mr Wolfgang Effenberg, PhD student, Department of Geomatics, the University of Melbourne

Dr Dozie Ezigbalike, Lecturer, Department of Geomatics, The University of Melbourne

Dr Gary Hunter, Senior Lecturer, Department of Geomatics, The University of Melbourne

Dr Peter Fisher, Senior Lecturer, Department of Geography, The University of Leicester, UK, Editor, International Journal of Geographical Information Systems

Professor Don Grant, AM, Surveyor General of New South Wales, Director of the New South Wales Land Information Centre, President of the New South Wales Board of Surveyors and Chairman of the Australian Public Sector Mapping Agencies

Land Management and Resources Information Executive Team (including Valuation, Crown Lands, Natural Resources, Land Titles, Survey and Mapping, GIS), Department of Natural Resources and Environment

Mr Brian Marwick, Director, WBCM Group, President-elect, Institution of Surveyors, Australia

Professor John McLaughlin, University of New Brunswick, Canada

Professor Iain Morrison, Professor of Information Systems, Assistant Vice Chancellor (Information Technology), The University of Melbourne

Ms Jo Moylan, Information Systems Branch, Department of Infrastructure

Mr Kevin Nettle, Director, Land Titles Office, New South Wales

Ms Liz O'Keeffe, Executive Director, Land Management and Resources Information

Mr Tommy Osterberg, Adviser, Office of the Director General, National Land Survey, Sweden

Mr John Parker, Surveyor General of Victoria, Department of Natural Resources and Environment

Mr Murray Raff, Senior Lecturer (and former Law Reform officer), Faculty of Law, The University of Melbourne

Ms Jude Wallace, Solicitor (and former Law Reform officer)

An open forum was then held where the draft vision was presented. Appropriate suggestions were incorporated into the vision.

The draft vision was submitted to GPAC for comment before submitting the final vision.

Acronyms and Terms

ALTS Automated Land Titles System

Cadastre is a parcel based and up-to-date land information system containing a record of interests in land (eg. rights, restrictions and responsibilities). It includes a geometric description of land parcels linked to other records describing the nature of the interests, and ownership or control of those interests, and often the value of the parcel and its improvements.

Coordinated Cadastre - A coordinated cadastre is defined as a survey accurate graphic representation (or map) of all land parcels in the State. The coordinated cadastre would be the legal graphic definition of all interests in land in the State. It could be considered a "continuous" land title plan.

DCDB Digital Cadastral Data Base (computerised cadastral map)

DTDB Digital Topographic Data Base (computerised topographic map)

SDMB State Digital Map Base

Further reading

ANZLIC, 1995. ANZLIC Benefits Study. Australian and New Zealand Land Information Council. AUSLIG, Canberra.

FIG, 1995a. Statement on the Cadastre. International Federation of Surveyors.

FIG, 1995b. Modern Cadastres and Cadastral Innovations. Proceedings of a seminar at the Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands, May 16, 1995. Working Group 7.1 "Vision for Cadastre 2014", Commission 7, International Federation of Surveyors, 62p.

Grant, D.M. and Krogh, B. 1994. Cadastral development in New South Wales - making it happen. Proceedings of the FIG XX Congress, Melbourne, Australia, 5-12 March, 1994, Vol. 7, 12p.

Grant, D.M. and Kelly, P., 1995. A spatial Odyssey. Proceedings of the 1995 New Zealand-Australian Cadastral Reform Conference, Wellington, New Zealand, 14-16 June, 1995, 30p.

The Economist, 1996. The Economics of the INTERNET.

WWW - http://www.economist.com.issue/19-10-96/

Williamson,I.P. and Hunter, G.J., 1996. The establishment of a coordinated cadastre for Victoria. A scoping study for the Office of Surveyor General and Office of Geographic Data Coordination, Department of Treasury and Finance, Government of Victoria, 42p.

Williamson, I.P., 1996. The justification of cadastral systems in developing countries. Accepted for publication in GEOMATICA.

Qualification

The preparation of this vision was allocated six man days. This included all interviews, seeking comments, organising and running a half-day open forum and preparing the report. As a consequence the Department of Natural Resources and Environment recognises that extensive consultation could not be undertaken in the preparation of the vision, particularly nationally or internationally, with the vision relying heavily on the author's knowledge and experience.

Acknowledgment

While I take full responsibility for this vision, I want to acknowledge that it has been based on extensive consultations with and advice from graduate students, university colleagues in Australia and overseas and industry representatives from the private sector, government and professional bodies, in Victoria, Australia and internationally.

Ian P.Williamson

Professor of Surveying and Land Information

Department of Geomatics

The University of Melbourne

Email: i.williamson@eng.unimelb.edu.au