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Philippine e-Journal for Applied Research and Development 9(2019), 14-26 ISSN 2449-3694 (Online)http://pejard.slu.edu.ph/vol.9/2019.08.10.pdf

LabGIS: A Real Estate Property Geographical Information System (GIS) for Local Government Units

Lei Kristoffer R. Lactuan1,*, Danilo J. Mercado1, and Jaime M. Samaniego1

1Institute of Computer Science, College of Arts and Sciences, University of the Philippines Los Baños, 4031 Los Baños, Laguna

* Corresponding author ([email protected])

Received, 21 January 2019; Accepted, 20 July 2019; Published, 10 August 2019

Copyright @ 2019 L.K.R. Lactuan, D.J.Mercado, & J.M. Samaniego. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

As part of the OpenLGU Project for a web-based integrated management information system for local government units in the Philippines, a Geographical Information System for mapping Real Estate Properties was created with open source technologies like OpenStreetMap and OpenLayers 3 with PostGIS. The system developed was able to provide functionalities for storing and managing information about the properties. With this information, it was able geotag the properties’ locations on the map by providing coordinates and therefore generating polygons that represent the location of the properties. A System Usability Scale survey was conducted with 25 respondents from four municipal assessor’s offices, which showed an average score of 62.72%. This evaluated the system with a rating of OK, which is acceptable but indicates the need for further improvements. Some of these improvements were identified for future development.

Keywords: web-based management information systems for local governments, GIS for real estate property mapping, OpenStreetMap, OpenLayers3, System Usability Scale survey

Philippine e-Journal for Applied Research and Development Website: pejard.slu.edu.ph ISSN 2449-3694 (Online)

Introduction

Service automation has been adopted by local government units (LGUs) in the Philippines in order to achieve the goals of effective governance and to respond more effectively to the needs of their constituents and employees. However, not all LGUs have the capacity to automate their services because of insufficiency in funds to buy automated systems or due to unwillingness in forgoing old methods for new ones. Either way, this results in problems like long queues, stock piles of papers, and slow processing of services [1]. To address the above problem, the OpenLGU Project was created to automate common services

among LGUs and put them into integrated information systems to help improve efficiency in the execution of services and data management [2]. The OpenLGU Project is a web-based integrated management information system for LGUs, developed using open source tools and framework. The project is open source as well, which means it is a software that is shared publicly to other developers for modifications and enhancements [3]. The project is free and can be used by LGUs that have no automated systems. The system integrates the different functions of the LGU such as Finance and Accounting, Real Property Tax Assessment and Collection, Business Permits and Licensing, Civil Registry, Planning and Development, Procurement,

15 Philippine e-Journal for Applied Research and Development Website: pejard.slu.edu.ph ISSN 2449-3694 (Online)

Philippine e-Journal for Applied Research and Development 9(2019), 14-26

Engineering Projects, Rural Health, Social Welfare and Development, Agriculture, Education, Employment Opportunities, Complaints and Action Center, Executive Information System and Freedom of Information, among others. Further enhancements are being done for the OpenLGU Project by identifying additional modules for development. One such module is the inclusion of a Geographical Information System (GIS) for mapping real estate properties as part of the Real Property Tax Assessment module of OpenLGU. The motivation to include the GIS module derives from some problems often encountered by the municipal assessor’s offices like lack of manpower, lack of appraisers, presence of many properties not yet assessed or the assessment is out of date, too many backlogs for tax mapping, and the absence of a system for geotagging properties [1]. These problems lead to improper collection of real property tax, which in turn contributes to the municipalities’ insufficiency of funding. A GIS is a system or a set of computer-based tools used to collect, store, manage, interpret, analyze, manipulate, and visualize geospatial data [4]. In relation to real estate, the GIS can help improve the analysis, assessment, or valuation of properties [5][6], as it provides a visualization of said properties on the map. Developing interactive maps that are connected to a database of geospatial data of real estate properties [7] can aid greatly in the LGU’s decision-making towards improved protocols, planning, and collection. Given the above advantages, this study aims to create a GIS for mapping real estate properties as part of the Real Property Tax Assessment module of OpenLGU, and to test the system’s usability in terms of user experience. The GIS module will focus on the storing and presentation of useful information about properties based on the Tax Declaration of Real Property Form from municipalities [8]. Other components like Tax Assessment and Collection are beyond the scope of the study and will be developed by other contributors.

Methodology

Materials

The name of the system is LabGIS (Land and Building Geographical Information System). As LabGIS is part of the OpenLGU project, the tools used to develop the system are open source, which are Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, YII 2 framework in PHP, PostgreSQL + PostGIS, OpenStreetMap, and OpenLayers 3. OpenStreetMap (OSM) and OpenLayers 3 (OL3) were used because, aside from being open source, these tools provide the developer an option to create and develop according to its needs. One particular option is to create a map server for offline use. OL3 is a javascript library that provides functionalities to add and manipulate layers (polygons, points, map types) inside a base OSM [9][10]. PostGIS in PostgreSQL was used as the database of the project for easy storage of geospatial data since PostGIS provides additional data types to accommodate geospatial data. These additional data types include Points (ST Point), Polygons (ST Polygon), and more [11].

System Architecture

To build the GIS, the following steps were followed:

1. Design the database: Identification of entities and their attributes as well as relationships between the entities.

2. Identify Users: The people who will be using the system.

3. Create an Activity Diagram: The main flow of activity that the users will do within the system

4. Design Features and Pages: Identification of features and pages that are included in the system. It is the fuctional specifications within the system.

The Tax Declaration of Real Property Form [9], shown in Figure 15 in the Appendix, was the basis in the identification of entities and attributes that were included in the database

16 L.K.R. Lactuan, D.J.Mercado, & J.M. Samaniego

design shown in Figure 1. Also, since other components like tax assessment and collection is not included in the system, it was assumed that there was already an existing module for adding real estate properties with a ready-to-read database of the information about the properties. The map, which displays the different properties (represented as polygons or points) and other information about them, was the main focus.

Figure 1. Entity Relationship Diagram of the Owner and Property along with their attributes.

Figure 2. Use Case Diagram for the GIS Administrator.

The system has only one user, the GIS Administrator that represents the members of the assessor’s office who are in charge of mapping. This user sees the map and all the details and is able to add layers of polygons or tags for the properties. Figure 2 shows the use case diagram, while Figure 3 shows the activity diagram of the user.



Figure 3. General Activity Diagram of the GIS Administartor

Table 1. SUS questions [11].# Question1 I think I would like to use this tool frequently. 2 I found the tool unnecessarily complex.3 I thought the tool was easy to use.4 I think that I would need the support of a technical person to be able to use this system.5 I found the various functions in this tool were well integrated.6 I thought there was too much inconsistency in this tool.7 I would imagine that most people would learn to use this tool very quickly.8 I found the tool very cumbersome to use.9 I felt very confident using the tool.10 I needed to learn a lot of things before I could get going with this tool.


Testing

To test if all features are working, especially those concerning the map, geospatial data (coordinates) were gathered in Los Baños, Laguna, particularly in Sta. Fe subdivision and some parts in Lopez Avenue in Barangay Batong Malake. These geospatial data represent the boundaries of properties that were used to draw the polygons bounding the properties. A total of 30 sets of coordinates were gathered. A System Usability Scale (SUS) survey [12] was conducted to assess the system’s usability in terms of user experience. The SUS survey makes use of a Likert scale (see Table 1 for SUS content). The respondents recruited were the staff from municipal assessor’s offices because they are the ones in charge of tax mapping and assessment. A total of 25 employees took the survey, three coming from Los Baños, five from Bay, nine from Sta. Cruz, and eight from Tayabas. The number of respondents was limited to the number of employees in each municipal assessor’s office.

System Requirements

The following were the identified features incorporated into different web pages that were included in the GIS with the description of how the features operate.

Login Page

This web page is where the user provides credentials in order for them to login as an administrator and be able to use the GIS.

Home Page

This web page displays a map with the coordinates on the top-right corner of the map. The values of the coordinates are dependent on the location where the cursor was pointed to. By default, the map displayed is the Google Map tile for OSM, but it can be changed to another type: the Bing Map tile for OSM. If the system is offline, a base OSM map is displayed. The different real estate properties that were geotagged into the system are displayed on

top of the map as polygons for properties with a property type of Land or Building, and points for properties with a property type of Machinery or Others. Different colors were assigned to the types of properties - green for land, black for buildings, red for machineries, and orange for other types. A marker is also placed on top of the polygons that when clicked, displays some details about the property. These details include the property id, location, and type.

Browse Property Page

This web page displays a summary of details about the properties that were registered in the system. The details are presented on a table and includes the property id, owner id, owner name, location of the property, property type, and a boolean indicator that shows if the property has been geotagged or not. A property that has been geotagged is one that has already been mapped in the system.

Property Profile Page

This web page displays the details of the property that includes the mapped property inside the main map, information about the property, its owner, and its benefactor. Only a plain map with no additional shapes will be displayed if the property has not yet been mapped or geotagged.

Update Property Page

This web page displays the details of the property ready for editing. It includes a tool box (shown in Figure 4) at the side which enables the user to map or tag the property into the main map by drawing a polygon or a point, depending on the property type. The property types have the following specifications:

• Land: Represented by a single green polygon.

• Building: Represented by one or more black-shaded polygon. The polygon(s) must be contained inside a Land property in order for the building to be geotagged in the database.

• Machinery: Represented by a red point. The point must be contained inside a



Land property in order for the building to be geotagged in the database.

• Others: Represented by an orange point. The point must be contained inside a Land property in order for the building to be geotagged in the database.

Drawing the polygon can be done in two ways as shown in Figure 5, that is, either by drawing directly on the map or by providing coordinates on the given text area in the tool box. The generate button functions differently depending on what input type the user chooses, whether by drawing or by coordinates. It will generate the coordinates should the user select the draw option, or polygons if the user should select the coordinates option. The drawing option allows the user to use the mouse and click on the map to draw a polygon or a point to represent the property. The drawn polygon can also be edited by clicking it and adjusting its corners. If a recently drawn polygon was selected then there is no need to click the polygon.

Figure 4. The tool box that the user uses to draw a polygon on the map. The user can specify what type of property is going to be drawn and how the property will be drawn.

Figure 5. The Flowchart for drawing a shape for a property.


Figure 6. View of some details about the property after clicking the marker on top of the property.

Browse Conflict Page

This page shows properties that were found by the system to have overlaps with each other. Overlaps will be checked among properties of the same type only. The user can delete a particular conflict if it has been resolved.

Results and Discussion

This study was conducted to create a GIS for mapping real estate properties as part of the Real Property Tax Assessment module of OpenLGU, and to test the GIS system’s usability in terms of user experience. Overall, the GIS system developed was able to perform the features that were specified in the system architecture. Figures 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 are screenshots of some of the functionalities that the system can do. Data on some properties in Sta. Fe subdivision and some parts in Lopez Avenue in Barangay Batong Malake, Los Baños, Laguna were integrated into the system, although the obtained data were limited only to Land type properties. Nonetheless, the system was

developed and successfully performed the functionalities of each feature. The system can be used to store and manage information about the subdivision’s properties and to geotag said properties by drawing polygons or points on the properties’ locations on the map or by providing their coordinates and generating the polygons that represent the said properties. Land, Building, Machinery, and Other types of properties were accommodated in the system. We can see the properties represented as polygons in Figures 6 and 12 where the boundaries of each property were the collected sets of coordinates. The visualization of the data from the municipality has revealed overlaps between one or more properties as seen in Figure 12. The system can then be used to detect overlaps between properties that already have existing coordinates. This information can be further used to create awareness for the need to adjust property boundaries in order to correct the overlaps and avoid territorial disputes. The SUS survey conducted to test the system for user usability shows that the system has an average score of 62.72%. This has a corresponding rating of OK, which is acceptable but would



Figure 7. The map with the mapped or geotagged property.

Figure 8. Table of properties that were registered in the system.


Figure 10. Editing the selected polygon.

Figure 9. Generating the coordinates of a drawn property of type land.



Figure 11. Table of properties of the same type that overlap.

Figure 12. Overlaps between one or more properties is shown in the visualization of the data from the municipality.


require improvements. The SUS ratings per score can be seen in Table 2. Figure 13 breaks down the scores per municipality where the system got 60.83% from Los Baños, 61% from Bay, 67.5% from Sta. Cruz, and 61.56% from Tayabas. Figure 14 shows the average score per question in the survey. Most of the respondents would like to use the tool, as question 1 has an average of 4.15. They also find it easy to use and that most people will learn to use the system

quickly, as questions number 3 and 7 both have a score of 3.92. The integration of features is considered average, as question 5 got a score of 3.69. Questions 2 and 6 got a score of 2.73, which indicates that the system is fairly consistent and not that complex. Questions 4, 8, 9 and 10 got 3.42, 2.81, 3.50, and 3.08, respectively. These suggest that the respondents are average in terms of their confidence in using the system (question 9) as well as on their need for the

Table 2. SUS ratings per score [15].Score 0 – 1.9 25.1 – 51.6 51.7 – 71.0 71.1 – 80.7 80.8 – 84.0 84.1 – 100Rating Worst Poor OK Good Excellent Best

Figure 13. SUS score per municipality.

Figure 14. Average score per question in the SUS survey.



support of a technical person to fully grasp the system (question 4). These may also imply that they need training to learn more about the system so that their confidence may increase.

Conclusion

A Geographical Information System entitled LabGIS was developed to geotag real estate properties in Sta. Fe subdivision and some parts in Lopez Avenue in Barangay Batong Malake, Los Baños, Laguna. The system developed was able to provide functionalities for storing and managing information about the properties. With this information, it was able to geotag the properties’ locations on the map by providing coordinates and therefore generating polygons that represent the location of the properties. Land, Building, Machinery, and Other types of properties were accommodated in the system. The system was also able to detect overlaps between properties that already have existing coordinates in the LGU of Los Baños. This points out to the need to reassess the concerned properties and adjust their boundaries so as to correct overlaps and, thus, avoid disputes. The SUS survey conducted to test the developed system’s usability came out with an average score, which is acceptable but would require improvements. Some improvements that can be done are as follows: integrating the taxation module done by one of the developers of OpenLGU, creating an XML format of the information regarding properties for a data import and export feature, and building the database further by adding other data of properties across the four municipalities. Other types of maps (e.g., transport, sewer and water) can also eventually be incorporated into the GIS system for more encompassing functions in terms of urban planning and development.

References

[1] M. Alcachupas. Municipal Assessor of Los Baños, Laguna. (2015, Feb. 27). Personal Interview.

[2] OpenLGU. http://openlgu.uplb.edu.ph/OpenLGU/. Accessed: 2019-01-16.

[3] What is open source? https://opensource.com/resources/what-open-source. Accessed: 2017-04-26.

[4] P. Burrough and R. McDonnell. (1998). Principles of geographical information

systems. New York: Oxford University Press.

[5] M. Rodriguez, C. Sirmans, and A. Marks. (1995). Using geographic information systems to improve real estate analysis. Journal of Real Estate Research, 10(2), 163-173.

[6] N. Garcia, M. Gamez, and E. Alfaro. (2008). Ann+ gis: An automated system for property valuation. Neurocomputing, 71(4), 733–742.

[7] P. Lennox. (2012). GIS is an important tool for local government. https://www.geospatialworld.net/article/gis-is-an-important-tool-for-local-government/. Accessed: 2019-01-16.

[8] Manual on real property appraisal and assessment operations. (2006). Department of Finance, Bureau of Local Government and Finance, p. 236.

[9] J. Brooke (1996). SUS - A quick and dirty usability scale. In Usability evaluation in industry, Edited by: P. W. Jordan, B. A. Thomas, Weerdmeester, I. L. McClelland, 189–194. London: Taylor & Francis.

[10] Openstreetmap. http://www.openstreetmap.org/. Accessed: 2017-04-26.

[11] Openlayers. https://openlayers.org/. Accessed: 2017-04-26.

[12] Postgis. http://postgis.net/. Accessed: 2017-04-26.

[13] J. Sauro. Five ways to interpret a sus score. https://measuringu.com/interpret-sus-score/. Accessed: 2019-06-24.


Appendix

Figure 15. Tax Declaration of Real Property Form.

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