County Addressing

Policies, Processes, and Frequently Asked Questions

From 2021-2022 the County proactively planned, designed, and deployed an aerial photography based address management system (AMS) that linked addresses with their associated parcels. The objective was to meet the needs of our customers and stakeholders which are the public (users), all County departments and administration (to support County business needs related to address data), outside agencies including federal, state, local, tribal, and private (to support agency business needs related to address data), and Skagit 911 (for public safety support). Skagit County met State directives for Next Generation 911 (NG911) data and accomplished several approved goals:

• Spatial accuracy improvement of the address point layer to approximately to 13’ from legacy 300’ accuracy, using aerial photography as the performance measure. 
• Address data storage and access from a spatial database rather than from a SQL database. Address data push from the spatial database to Skagit County road database (SCRDB), measuring efficiency by comparing improved address management and public safety system workflows to legacy workflows.
• Maintenance of SCRDB that populates website address information to departments that need it, checking for accuracy and quality between new site structure address points (SSAP) and SCRDB data or other SQL views.
• Address data integration and consolidation of NG911, ECW, and Geovalidation needs, measured by the difference between a single dataset to multiple legacy datasets.
• Address data and public safety data security management and control by the appropriate staff, measured through controlled security levels and methods (i.e., active directory, Esri users and groups, etc.).
• Transition to a GIS enterprise address management approach (in-house applications, add-ins, and web interfaces) from legacy SQL Server tools, measured by pilot-tested feature classes and Python programming.
• Improved multi-jurisdictional address data on the County website that replaced PACS address data, tested with QC reports of data submitted to the County by collaborating address authorities.
• Improved efficiency of Skagit County Address Authority functions to generate, assign, and edit county addresses, to research address history, and to create and determine address ranges for unincorporated roads, measured through pilot testing and pre-deployment checklists.
• Improved efficiency of Skagit 911 and adoption of Next Generation 911 functions to add and edit addresses and ranges submitted by address authorities, to quality check jurisdictional boundaries and corresponding address ranges, and to create geobase centerlines for incorporated roads, measured through pilot testing and pre-deployment checklists.

Anticipating that implementation of the new AMS would highlight discrepancies between NG911 mandates and existing county address code, GIS set to work rewriting SCC 15.24. The draft compilation currently guides and reflects AMS best practices based on National Emergency Number Association NG911 standards and Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) national address standards. A draft ordinance is under legal review before scheduling a public hearing and adoption by the Board of County Commissioners.