New Jersey Meadowlands Municipalities Gain Planning Tool

The New Jersey Meadowlands Commission (NJMC) recently unveiled a GIS digital mapping system designed to improve the planning capabilities of the 14 Meadowlands communities.

Starting with Secaucus, Meadowlands town officials will have high-speed access to a mapping database located in the NJMC’s Lyndhurst offices and compiled from the paper maps and other geographical documents available at the local and state level. The information that the Commission is sharing will allow local municipalities to access information to help with zoning, planning, and community safety. Various municipal departments, including law enforcement and fire fighters, will be able to combine detailed land information from images taken by satellite with Census 2000 data and local municipal contributions and turn these statistics into visual problem solving tools. “The cost of a state-of-the-art geographic information system is usually beyond the reach of many of the municipalities in the Meadowlands District,” said NJMC Executive Director Robert Ceberio. “Under our Municipal Assistance Program, this tool is now available to all.” On average each municipality in the Meadowlands is slated to receive about $25,000 in services, hardware and software to help them access and contribute to the mapping system.