New Johnston GIS app tells residents where they are

Since Pokemon Go set the world on fire earlier this year, it’s become commonplace to see people wandering the streets with their faces buried in their phones.

Though unlikely to see many crossover users, Johnston County’s GIS office is giving residents a new reason to stare at their phones in public.

Last month, the GIS office launched its MapClick mobile app, allowing residents to access public mapping data on their phones for the first time.

Online geographic information systems haven become standard practice for cities and counties over the past decade, offering residents easy access to public land information in map form. Everything that’s in the county’s deed books is in its GIS map but in a way that actually looks like Johnson County.

Now residents can access that information anywhere, searching by address, landowner, tax number or just by moving around on the map. The new app can also tell users information about their current location by using the GPS technology in smart phones. GIS director Rhonda Norris said the current-location feature would be especially useful for builders and contractors working in the field.

“You can simply be riding down the road in Johnston County and get to a parcel, wither it be for building purposes or looking for a new house to live in, and see information,” Norris said. “If you’re a hunter and you’re seeing a field you might want to keep track of ... you simply just touch the screen.”

Norris said the app can be accessed only from the county’s GIS website; it can’t be downloaded from the Apple app store or Google Play.

“All of this is public information,” she said. “It’s been something our customer base has been looking for for a while.”

Johnston County Commissioners seemed on board, though not all commissioners use a smart phone.

“Thanks for looking for new and innovative ways we can serve our citizens,” board chairman Tony Braswell said. “It’s absolutely exciting.”

Though the information is public, the app drew unease from one resident. The act of standing out in front of a property and having easy access to its owner’s name and other details troubled Ken Taylor of Clayton.

“It sounds neat, but I could see some scary things coming from that,” Taylor said. “That’s a stalker’s delight. Granted, it’s all public information (but) it’s making it a lot easier to obtain.”

It’s been a busy summer for Johnston’s GIS office. Besides getting the app online, the department used its summer interns to digitize old aerial photos of the county. The photos span from 1937 to 1988, with most sections of the county photographed by plane every decade or so. In one from 1971, the land where Carolina Premium Outlets has sat for decades was then just timber and fields.

“You can really see how the county has changed,” Campbell University student and GIS intern Emily Kirsch said. “I could see the drive-in theater where the Walmart is now. My mom sad she went there all the time.”

This story was originally published September 12, 2016 at 7:34 AM with the headline "New Johnston GIS app tells residents where they are."