The Village of Norridge has begun putting together a village parking inventory for all public and private parking lots. The inventory will allow the village to determine whether each parking lot meets all regulations for such things as size and number of handicapped spaces. The inventory will also allow economic development to help sell properties by providing the prospective buyer with the amount of parking spaces available for customers.

The Village of Norridge has begun mapping out traffic accident information in an effort to try and limit the amount of accidents in high traffic areas and understand why accidents occur in low traffic areas. A map was created using data provided by the police department detailing the locations of traffic accidents by month. Accident locations were added to the map and categorized by type (property damage, personal injury, village property, fatality). Eventually, as data from previous months is added to the database, patterns will begin to emerge.

The Village of Norridge requires that every residential property within the Village limits to have at least 65% green space on the property. This means that the homeowner can only have 35% of the property consist of impervious surface areas such as the building, garage, driveway, and patios. Any resident in violation of this policy can face fines and may be forced to make changes to their property. In the past, the Village would calculate the green space percentage by measuring the area of the parcels and the features using a ruler and a pencil. The Village asked the GIS department to come up with something that would aid in their analysis.

The Village of Norridge has a newsletter that they typically mail to all addresses in the village. In addition to going to all houses, the newsletters are sent to every unit in every apartment or condo building. Because of the natural turnover in apartment renting, many times the newsletters come back to the village because there is no one currently living at the address. This costs the village money in returned and wasted postage. The village asked the GIS department to come up with a map that would present a solution to the problem.

Since 1994, the Estelle Sieb Center in Norridge has, among other things, held classes and meetings for local communities in law enforcement, fire protection, etc…Typically, these classes can last all day, requiring the attendees to find a place for lunch. In the past, the center would have a few old maps or a village employee would mention a few places in the area. The village wanted to create an updated map that could be distributed to all attendees that would show the locations of restaurants in the village as well as a few near by in Chicago. The village asked the GIS department to put together a map showing up to date restaurant locations.

The Village of Norridge does not have its own fire department, but is instead serviced by the Norwood Park Fire Department which covers Norridge, Harwood Heights, and Norwood Park Township. Because the fire department is not directly affiliated with the village, it does not always have the most up to date information. The fire department asked the GIS specialist to create a new product that would show the locations of all hydrants in Norridge, while also including village addresses and parcel boundaries for location reference.

In the past few years, the Village of Norridge has contracted a company to come out and take an inventory of all the trees within the village limits. In addition to the location of each tree, the company inventoried the species, trunk size, health, and other descriptive information. Although the database that was created from the information has been useful, the village was looking to better utilize the information.

The village of Norridge sent a survey to its residents, attached to the water bill, requesting information about their experience with flooding in or near their residence. The survey consisted of a few questions relating to if the resident’s street or house had flooded in the past year. The resident’s were to answer “yes” or “no”, and then mail the surveys back to the village. The responses would help the village determine where flooding in the village is a major concern and help plan where they may need to replace existing storm sewer infrastructure. The village asked the GIS department to map out the responses by address to get a visualization of the flooding within the village.

Every year the Village of Norridge requires its resident’s to purchase a sticker (permit) for each owned vehicle. This sticker allows the resident to park on village streets without receiving a fine. The village keeps track of each sticker purchased each year and requested that the GIS department map out each address and find which households had not purchased a sticker for 2009.

Although many of the Village of Norridge employees choose to live within the village limits, only the department heads are required to live in Norridge. There was concern about some employees living far outside the village. Therefore, a study was done to determine if a village residency requirement was needed for all village employees. The Public Works Department employees were of special concern as they are required to be on call for both water breaks and snow plowing. If a public works employee lives too far away, they may not be able to respond to an emergency and burden the rest of the department. The village asked the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department to create a map showing the distances from Norridge to the surrounding city and suburbs.

The Village of Norridge is unusual in the fact that street parking is allowed on nearly every street within the village. Any person can park their car on a village street except for certain sections being designated “Resident Parking Only,” meaning that a village sticker is required to park a vehicle on that section of a street. The village created these restrictions based on a few factors. For example, many of the residential streets near the Harlem and Irving Park Shopping Center are marked as resident only to stop overflow shoppers from the mall taking spots needed by the residents. Streets near Norridge Park are deemed “resident only” to allow residents to park on their streets when there are popular events held at the park creating an overflow from the parking lot located within Norridge Park. The village requested a map to show all “Resident Only” parking so that village employees would no longer have to sort through the ordinances to determine the specific locations and restrictions.

Although less than two square miles in size, the Village of Norridge contains numerous restaurants and eating establishments that reflect the diversity of the area. The village website keeps a list of these establishments, but never has had a map indicating the location of each restaurant. Using the ability of a Geographic Information System (GIS) program to create location points within Google Maps, a map was created showing the location of each restaurant within the village as well as address information and a link to the restaurants website. This interactive map located on the village website allows the user to find restaurants within the village based on location.

Due to its close proximity to the City of Chicago, the Village of Norridge, IL has an extensive bus route system containing routes from the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), Pace and its own publically funded internal system. These routes travel on every major street within the village and in most cases overlap each other creating a vast network of routes and stops. If a village resident wanted to know what routes traveled through the village, the resident would have to access the individual websites for the CTA, Pace and the Village of Norridge to get information about their respective routes.

With a desire to promote the village’s technology profile, the IT Department went forward and created a section of the village website dedicated to the Geographic Information System (GIS) program. This would allow village residents to access information from their own computers as well as at their own convenience rather than having to acquire information from a person in village hall such as they had done previously done in the past.

The recent collection of planimetric data or improved features such as buildings, roadways, parking lots, driveways, etc. in Elk Grove Village has provided for some new analysis possibilities through its GIS (Geographic Information System). One of the evaluations conducted was the distance between primary building structures and also a count of the number of addresses that exist within each building structure.