Brooklyn's Progress
January 2004
The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and Web partner CommunityCartography have launched a state-of-the-art real estate resource for Brooklyn. �Premium Real Estate Data,� part of the �Brooklyn Data Bank� on the award-winning iBrooklyn.com portal, offers an unparalleled trove of detailed information about every property in the borough. For the first time Web browsers will be able to access a wide range of official New York City databases in one click, either by typing in an address or block and lot or by clicking on a map or find all properties that meet the search criteria they specify. The site also offers demographic information (including age, income, and race/ethnicity) in easy-to-read graphic format for any specified radius around a selected point.
According to CommunityCartography president Benjamin Miller, the site is among the first in the United States to use a revolutionary Geographic Information System technology recently developed in Europe. "Having worked with interactive Web mapping software from its early days, we were delighted to discover the power of a new technology developed by TatukGIS that represents a major advance over any of its predecessors and to harness this technology to benefit anyone interested in Brooklyn real estate. Our new iBrooklyn page makes it possible to interact with huge datasets to instantly generate maps, output tables, and graphs. No other site including, for example, the US Census page, can drill into these datasets with this degree of power and flexibility, never mind ease of use."
Those who want to find detailed information about a particular property will get a map of the property and tables with dozens of fields of assessment and other information from NYC agencies such as the Department of Finance, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, and the Department of City Planning. Among many other things, they can see who owns the building, how it is zoned, what its current use is, how many units are in it, what the building type is, when it was built, the number of stories, the building frontage, depth, and gross square footage, the lot frontage, depth, shape, square footage, acreage, and whether it is on a corner, the total market value, the land market value, the assessed valuations of the building and the land, whether the building was altered, and when, the owner�s and mortgage holder�s addresses, and income and expense information for major buildings. If the property is owned or leased by the City, they will find when and how it was acquired, which agency has jurisdiction over it, which other agencies, if any, also use it, and other pertinent details (for instance, whether it known to have hazardous materials on the lot, whether it is in an empowerment zone or economic development zone or urban renewal area).
The map shows where the parcel is and its shape, as well as nearby bus routes, subway lines and stops, and community facilities (such as schools, hospitals, and social service centers). Clicking on any of these features brings up information on the community facility (such as the number of students or patients it serves, and who owns and operates it), the number of riders on the bus or subway line, and even the assessment data for nearby parcels.
Alternatively, the page allows users to find all properties that meet certain criteria, such as all vacant parcels within a community district that are over a certain size, or under a certain valuation, or in a certain zoning class.
Since 1999, CommunityCartography (�ComCarto�) has been the source for the most complete inventory of geographic information about New York City�information it has been supplying to clients as paper or digital maps, stand-alone database and/or mapping applications, and interactive Web sites. ComCarto has been a Chamber member since 2000. In addition to their partnership with the Chamber on the iBrooklyn portal, according to Miller, the Chamber has been a useful source of referrals and ComCarto has worked with Chamber members such as Forest City Ratner and the Myrtle Avenue Improvement Association.
In order to provide all Chamber members with the opportunity to �test-drive� the site, the Premium Real Estate Data page will be available on a free trial basis for a limited time (6 weeks from publication of this edition of Brooklyn's Progress). The iBrooklyn Premium Data page will be available on a subscription basis, at $40 per month or $375 per year. Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce members receive a 10 percent discount. (Chamber members also receive a 10 percent discount from the currently published price of any other ComCarto product.)
To see the site visit http://www.ibrooklyn.com/ � About Brooklyn � Brooklyn Data Bank � Premium Real Estate Data. For more information about CommunityCartography, visit http://www.comcarto.com/, e-mail info@ComCarto.com, or call 877-MakeMap. |