Finding municipal data

SDS 236

Ben Baumer

2/21/23

The Saga of Nu-Way Homes

I went on a bike ride: Nov 27, 2020

38 Stoddard

181 Round Hill

4 Rust

36 Landy

12 Winslow

23 Lexington

59 Ice Pond

Bay State Village: Feb 27, 2021

At that corner of Warner and Federal streets, there was one house on a piece of land that was actually two parcels, said Carolyn Misch, the city’s assistant director of planning and sustainability. John Handzel of Nu-Way Homes in East Longmeadow bought the land and split it into four parcels where there will be four homes, she said, including newly built 8 and 12 Warner St.

Bay State Village: Feb 15, 2022

Right now, 39 Landy Ave. in Florence’s Bay State Village neighborhood is vacant and dilapidated. Soon, the house and outbuildings could come down and the overgrown lot could be cleared to make room for as many as three new houses, part of a broader redevelopment plan unfolding in the area led by Nu-Way Homes.

In Springfield, too

Ward 5 City Councilor Marcus Williams said Friday that a developer has assured nervous neighbors in Sixteen Acres that his construction project on Cabinet Street is a single home, and not a threat to wetlands or tranquility.

Williams conducted a council committee meeting on Thursday on Cabinet Street to discuss the project with approximately 10 residents and developer John Handzel, president of Nu-Way Homes Inc.

Nu-Way Homes

John Handzel

• Real Estate broker
• Facebook

A half-baked attempt

https://beanumber.github.io/nuway/

Finding an angle

Nu-Way Homes article

• Aesthetic homogeneity
• NIMBY-ism
• Urban density (“infill”)
• Sustainability
• Historic preservation
• Zoning and permits
• Follow the money!
• What else?

Public municipal data

Northampton

• Records request
• Document Center

Who owns what?

• MassLand Records
• Shapefiles
• Parcel ownership
• MassGIS Property Tax Parcels

GIS Maps

https://hosting.tighebond.com/northamptonma_public/##info-address

Meeting minutes

• Planning Board
• City Council
• Find More…

Public data?

https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_ma/000859053

Big cities

• Boston
• New York
• Austin
• And many more…

Socrata

• Developer API
• RSocrata
• SoQL

Example: EMS incidents in Austin

library(tidyverse)
library(RSocrata)
ems_incidents <- read.socrata("https://data.austintexas.gov/resource/bptg-ndvw.json")
glimpse(ems_incidents)

Rows: 150
Columns: 21
$ month_key                               <chr> "201010", "201011", "201012", …
$ month_start_date                        <dttm> 2010-10-01, 2010-11-01, 2010-…
$ count_responses_all                     <chr> "8773", "7693", "8065", "8158"…
$ count_responses_into_coa                <chr> "7424", "6421", "6737", "6946"…
$ count_responses_into_tc                 <chr> "1333", "1246", "1295", "1193"…
$ count_responses_into_other              <chr> "16", "26", "33", "19", "15", …
$ count_responses_into_coa_or_tc          <chr> "8757", "7667", "8032", "8139"…
$ count_responses_into_tc_by_coa          <chr> "648", "579", "584", "560", "6…
$ count_responses_into_coa_by_tc          <chr> "268", "196", "206", "228", "2…
$ percent_responses_into_coa_by_tc        <chr> "3.6099137931000", "3.05248403…
$ percent_responses_into_tc_by_coa        <chr> "48.6121530382500", "46.468699…
$ count_responses_into_other_by_coa       <chr> "15", "22", "30", "16", "13", …
$ count_responses_into_other_by_tc        <chr> "1", "4", "3", "3", "2", "4", …
$ count_responses_into_coa_or_tc_by_coa   <chr> "7804", "6804", "7115", "7278"…
$ count_responses_into_coa_or_tc_by_tc    <chr> "953", "863", "917", "861", "8…
$ percent_responses_into_coa_by_coa       <chr> "96.3900862068900", "96.947515…
$ percent_responses_into_tc_by_tc         <chr> "51.3878469617400", "53.531300…
$ percent_responses_into_other_by_coa     <chr> "93.7500000000000", "84.615384…
$ percent_responses_into_other_by_tc      <chr> "6.2500000000000", "15.3846153…
$ percent_responses_into_coa_or_tc_by_coa <chr> "89.1172776064800", "88.743967…
$ percent_responses_into_coa_or_tc_by_tc  <chr> "10.8827223935100", "11.256032…

Example: EMS visits over time