VALPARAISO | Currently when Porter County residents need to legally notify their neighbors, it means a trip to the Porter County auditor's office to track down each adjacent property owner.

It's a process, said Jackie Green, chief deputy of the geographic information system, that can take a day's research thumbing through the office's various records.

When the county's new geographic information system comes online, the same task likely will take three minutes.

It has been more than a decade since the county saw the need for a GIS. The process started back then, said Green, with the mapping of Pleasant Township as a test run, but ended when the county ran out of funds.

Since then, the county authorized to spend up to $2 million of its County Economic Development Income Tax funds for a GIS, said Porter County Auditor Jim Kopp. The Sidwell Co. of St. Charles, Ill., was hired and has begun the mapping process. It is likely to finish the northern half of the county -- from Lake Michigan to Division Road -- and have the service up and running by Aug. 1. The entire system is expected to be in place by the end of March 2008.

"This is not a luxury anymore. It is an invaluable tool that will eliminate redundancy from office to office," said Green, adding that once gathered, the data can be used to analyze various issues, such as growth patterns.

"It will give the whole county a tool, government or nongovernment, to get questions answered," added Kopp.

The GIS will provide a plethora of information to county and municipal officials as well as residents, developers and Realtors.

It will assist planners in understanding drainage concerns. It will help define individual land parcels. It also can be used by the county's Emergency Management Agency, police and fire departments and various county offices.

The GIS will bring together information that is now scattered through county offices, most often in mapping books or other diagrams into a single databank. It will allow the information to be layered, one issue over another, to get a better picture of the county, they said.

The Sidwell Co. has nearly completed the digital mapping of the northern half of Porter County. In the next week or two, said Kopp, they will be purchasing necessary computer hardware and other materials to put the system in place. They will also be hiring two additional personnel, an information technology specialist to manage the system and a mapping maintenance person to input updated information. Kopp says they hope to have the materials and personnel in place by May 1 to begin training on the system. The job openings will be posted at the Porter County Administration Center shortly.

For the first year the system is up and running, Green said, the contractor will offer the GIS online free for use by the public.