The city of Los Angeles owns 7,508 properties in city limits, making it the city’s largest land owner — but other local, state and federal entities own land as well. Property Panel, the new tool released June 19, improves the old version’s existing list and map to add search and story capabilities, making land parcels, their ownership and available information more easily identifiable. Among the takeaways:
• Property Panel, built by L.A. Controller Ron Galperin and his tech and innovation staff, using Esri story mapping software and data from the Los Angeles County Assessor’s Office, examines nearly 14,000 properties owned by six entities: the city, the county of Los Angeles, L.A. Metro, Los Angeles Unified School District, the state of California and the federal government. Parcels can be located by address but also by entity layer — or in dashboards by congressional, state Senate or state Assembly district; by county supervisor or city council representative district; or by one of more than 100 neighborhood councils.
Los Angeles County Assessor Jeff Prang applauded the launch, in a statement, and said he hopes the data his office provided will lead to “more creative approaches to how publicly-owned properties are utilized.”
• Its goal, Galperin told Techwire, is to help government entities see themselves as they are — as “portfolio managers” — and to empower that mission with a website that can help developers and community members interested in vacant or disused properties connect with the appropriate officials.
“When you look at the tremendous need that exists for economic development, for community development, for play area, for low-income housing, senior housing, homeless housing, we really need to look at our own holdings, our own portfolio to see what opportunities there are to really do some good,” Galperin said. The goal isn’t necessarily to sell these properties, but to forge the appropriate relationships — including public-private partnerships and long-term leases — to revive everything from parking lots to empty libraries to residential property.
In a statement, Esri’s Director of Government Markets Christopher Thomas praised Galperin’s perspective and mission in creating the new solution.
“Property Panel gets to the core of government: improving the lives of citizens. Residents within a local government’s jurisdiction should know about the resources available to them,” Thomas said.
• The new tool was “part of the city’s existing work” with Esri and didn’t cost the Controller’s Office anything more, Ian Thompson, spokesman for the Controller’s Office, told Techwire via email. Though it hasn’t always worked with Esri, the Controller’s Office has mapped everything from uncapped oil wells to city police domestic violence calls to areas where residents are most likely to get a parking ticket. Galperin said he’s already contemplating Property Panel Version 3.0.
• Property Panel could have applications for other governments in the U.S. and abroad, the controller said, noting his office will release a report later this summer looking at real estate asset management in the city.
“The report that we have coming looking at asset management also looks at what’s being done creatively in other cities in the U.S. and around the world; and this is, I think, a tremendous opportunity for government to think of itself in much more entrepreneurial terms,” Galperin said.
