How to Lead the Way for Your COVID-19 Recovery Phase Using Esri's ArcGIS Hub
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Now more than ever, local governments are searching for ways to reach out to their community stakeholders and citizens to assist them in the recovery from COVID-19. Stafford County, Virginia, has led the way with the deployment of recovery-related applications using Esri ®'s ArcGIS Hub.
Ideal Platform
By now, you've probably heard of ArcGIS Hub, but you're wondering what can it do for me? The Hub is part of Esri's geospatial cloud that allows local governments to organize their citizen engagement content. Hub is designed well with easy-to-configure templates, allowing you to plug in your maps, applications, surveys, and more in a visually appealing way for your audience.
With ArcGIS Hub Premium, local governments can work with teams of people, including members of the community. Even Hub Basic allows you to organize and share data and create a Hub site. The recovery from COVID-19 demands the need for this type of interaction, and the Hub provides the ideal delivery platform just when it is needed the most.
Stafford County, Virginia, Leading the Way
GeoDecisions assisted Stafford County in setting up the Hub to address various community needs, including COVID-19 statistics for the county as well as information on shopping, zoning permits for restaurants for new outdoor seating needs, and needed community services.
Food Delivery and Grocery Store Status
Stafford County saw a gap in information available to its community. Which stores have special hours for seniors? Who has implemented safety measures for their customers? What staples are in abundance or are missing? Who is offering food delivery? We helped Stafford County address this need by adding a dashboard to collect and display information from the public on shop status. This survey feeds into the crowd-sourced shopping experience and food-delivery options maps, which are available on the Stafford County, Virginia, Coronavirus Response Site. The Hub makes it easy to design, modify, and share as conditions on the ground continue to change.
Zoning Permits for Restaurants' Outdoor Seating
A recent change at the state level for Virginia allows restaurants to provide areas for outdoor seating, provided they have obtained the proper zoning permits.
GeoDecisions assisted Stafford County in linking their on-line permit application to a GIS interactive map that allows restaurant owners to sketch the areas they would like to have permitted for outdoor seating. The map calculates the customers per square foot limits and makes this information part of the zoning application. The entire zoning application can also be made available using a customized Survey123 design, which provides an even greater dashboard and reporting functionality for the county government.
Community Services
Stafford County has been a leader in the use of geospatial technology to connect its citizens with community services. We recently helped Stafford move its open-source data to an ArcGIS Hub site to allow for more significant interaction and ease in updating. This is the community's public platform for exploring and downloading open data, discovering and building apps, and engaging in solving important local issues.
For more information, please contact David Gilbert, GISP – Senior Project Manager.
