STEELE
CREEK NEWS
Revalued Property Assessments Available on New County Web Site
(January 18, 2003)
Mecklenburg County sent out revaluation notices to property owners
Friday, but you also can check your property's new assessed
value--or the value of any single-family property in the county--on
the county's new Property
Ownership Land Records Information System, or POLARIS. This
system replaces the county's popular GIS Real Estate System.
The new system is
an online Geographic Information System, or GIS. A GIS can store a
variety of types of geographic information in different layers,
which can be turned on and off on a map display. Among the 34 layers
available on POLARIS include municipalities and spheres of
influence, major and local roads, SWIM buffers and FEMA floodplains,
ZIP Codes, zoning, greenways, building footprints, and parcels and
parcel information. One exciting feature of the system is color
aerial photography from 2002.
The POLARIS screen display
shows various tools on the right side. With these you can display
the map legend, show layers and turn them off and on, search for
specific properties by address, property owner, or other factors,
and pull up a multitude of information about individual parcels.
Available information includes ownership, value, date of sale, and
even photographs. Data generally appears on the left side of the
screen or in separate windows.
Below is a sample
image from the system. This shows the intersection of Steele Creek
Road (NC Hwy 160) and York Road (NC Hwy 49). The large, odd-shaped
building near the top is the new southwest middle school that is
under construction. The rectangular area between the school and
Steele Creek Road is the site of the new Steele Creek Branch
Library. The map in the upper left shows the location of the
photograph within Mecklenburg County.
Although it may
take a while to get comfortable with this system, it is well worth
the effort because of all the information you can access.
Mecklenburg County
offers several other online GIS applications, which are accessible
from the GIS
Home Page.
You may find
additional information about the county's revaluation on the 4citizenhelp
web site,
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