What if?TM GIS-Based Policy Analysis and Land Use Forecasting Tool Released

CAPS, Inc.

September 21, 2001 -- Community Analysis and Planning Systems, Inc. of Hudson Ohio announces the release of What if?TM 1.0 an easy-to-use GIS-based system for evaluating alternative land development policies and projecting future land use patterns.

As its name suggests, What if? a is an explicitly policy oriented planning tool for determining what would happen if public policy choices are made and assumptions about the future prove to be true. Policy choices that can be considered in the model include: (1) the expansion of public infrastructure; (2) the implementation of farmland or open space protection policies, or (3) the adoption of land use plans, zoning ordinances, or other growth controls.

What if? provides customized computational routines that are not available in any GIS product or any other commercially available package. The key functions performed by the software are:

. Conducting Suitability Analysis. The What if Suitability option allows users easily and quickly to conduct traditional land suitability analyses and generate suitability maps and tables reporting the relative suitability of different locations for different land uses.

. Projecting Land Use Demand. The What if Growth option allows users to specify the assumptions that determine the amount and nature of future demand for residential, industrial, commercial, preservation, and local land uses. These assumptions are converted into the equivalent demands for different land uses and can be viewed in easy-to-understand tables.

. Allocating Future Land Use Patterns. The What if Allocation module projects future land use patterns by allocating the projected demand for each land use to different locations, based on their relative suitability for these uses. Land use projections can be prepared at ten-year intervals and for build out. Projected land use patterns can be viewed in easy-to-understand map and tables.

For further information and a free, fully functional, demonstration version of What if? visit www.What-if-PSS.com or contact: Richard E. Klosterman, President, Community Analysis and Planning Systems, Inc., phone 330-650-9087, fax 330-650-9087, e-mail: [email protected].