Using SiteMaps
What SiteMaps is, and what SiteMaps isn't
SiteMaps gathers public property data and presents it in an easy-to-use package.
SiteMaps draws from user-facing public websites hosted by government bodies and commercial providers, each of which you could find and use for yourself. But, give SiteMaps an Ontario address or roll number and in about 3 minutes SiteMaps provides aerial and street-level imagery, zoning, conservation and floodplain limits, cropland attributes, and lookups of heritage, site condition, and more.
SiteMaps is limited by the quality and currency of the over 100 public datasets from which it draws. It is not a substitute for a site survey or a title search, and it is not legal, planning, or environmental advice. Never rely on SiteMaps output. Always verify with the appropriate authorities.
Entering an address
SiteMaps works best when it knows exactly which lot you mean. A normal street address usually resolves cleanly (for example, 123 Main Street, Anytown). A postal code is not needed.
However, the geolocator can miss. A rural, newly severed, or notional address may centre on the road instead of the lot, which throws off the maps and the street view.
SiteMaps gives you three ways to specify a property: by address, by roll number, or by map coordinates. The roll number and coordinates are covered next.
Your property's roll number (ARN), and why it helps
The property's assessment roll number (ARN) points straight at the parcel.
Where to find it:
- A property tax statement or assessment notice. It is printed on both.
- A real-estate listing. Rural listings often include it.
- AgMaps, the Province's agricultural mapping site, which shows the roll for any parcel.
How to use it: copy and paste the ARN in place of the address.
Running by coordinates
You can also point SiteMaps directly to a set of map coordinates. In Google Maps, right-click the exact location and click the numbers at the top of the menu to copy them. Paste them into SiteMaps, for example 42.95793, -81.08566. The package is built on that exact point, and its cover says it was located by coordinates.
On the results page
A contents sheet sits up front, and the file names follow the same letters and order. You can read the whole package on the results page without downloading: a chapter jump bar runs across the top, and clicking any map opens it full size, with the arrow keys to step through and Esc to close. Each map carries a one-line caption of what it shows, and the manifest records the sources.
How to read your SiteMaps package
A one-page guide. The same page appears in every package.
A package is an orientation aid, not a determination. It gathers what public data says about one Ontario property, so you know where to look and what to ask. It is information, not advice. Check anything you rely on against the source of record.
1. First, check the location
Find the red pin and the red outline on the parcels map (D1). Make sure they mark the property you mean. An address can match the wrong lot. If the top band ends with [LOCATION APPROXIMATE], the place was not confirmed, so read every exhibit with that in mind.
2. How to read any exhibit
- Top band, first line: the exhibit's number and name in bold, then the address, where the data came from, and the date it was captured.
- Top band, second line: what the map is for, what it finds for this property, and the licence where one applies.
- Red pin: the subject. Red outline: the subject's lot. Other lines and colours are explained in the map's key.
- Lines are mapped, not surveyed. Lot lines, limits and boundaries come from the publisher's own mapping. Measurements are approximate.
- Dates matter. Each exhibit shows the data as published on the day the package was made. Imagery can be several years old. Run the address again for current maps.
- Details, after the last chapter, lists every exhibit's source, date and licence.
3. When a map is a notice card
A card in place of a map reports missing data, not a missing feature. A lot with no services map is not thereby unserviced.
- NO PUBLIC … GIS: the municipality does not publish this layer openly.
- WITHHELD ON LICENCE: the layer exists, but its publisher has not yet given permission to use it.
- … UNAVAILABLE: the source did not answer when the package was made. Try again later.
4. The six chapters
- A Location. Street maps, aerials and Street View. They show what was visible on the capture date, not the property today.
- B Site. The dimensioned plot is the mapped lot, not a survey. Topography and geology are regional mapping, not a site investigation.
- C Infrastructure. Services, drains, wells, utility lines, water-taking permits and internet are what their publishers have mapped, not proof of a connection or a substitute for a locate.
- D Planning. Zoning sets what is permitted now. The official plan sets what the municipality intends. Neither map is a compliance opinion, and exceptions often do not show.
- E Authority. Regulated areas are a screening layer, not a permit decision. The heritage search covers the provincial register only. Site-condition records are a search of a public registry, not an environmental assessment.
- F Agriculture. Provincial mapping at its published scale, not a study of this lot.
5. Words you will meet
- Parcel fabric. The publisher's digital map of lot lines, compiled from records. It can be out of date or off by metres. Only a survey fixes a boundary.
- Assessment roll number. The 19-digit number MPAC gives a property on the assessment roll it prepares. Municipalities use it to bill property tax. SiteMaps accepts it in place of an address.
- Zoning. The municipal by-law that sets the uses and buildings permitted on a lot, with standards such as setbacks and height. An existing lawful use may continue even if the by-law no longer allows it.
- Official plan designation. The municipality's long-term policy for an area. It does not by itself permit a use, but zoning must conform to it. A use the designation does not support normally needs an official plan amendment first.
- Regulated area. Land where a conservation authority's permit is needed before building, altering a building, grading, placing or removing fill, or any work in or near water, wetlands or hazard lands. The authority decides, not the map.
- Record of Site Condition. A filing in the provincial Environmental Site Registry in which a qualified person summarizes a site's environmental condition as of a certification date. One is required before certain changes to a more sensitive use, such as industrial to residential.
- Soil capability class. The Canada Land Inventory's rating of land for common field crops, judged on soil and climate together. Class 1 has no significant limits. Class 7 is unsuited to cultivation or permanent pasture. Letters name the limit, such as W for excess water or T for topography. Organic soils and water are not rated, and the class says nothing about specialty crops such as tender fruit.
- Hydrologic soil group. A soil's runoff potential, judged by how fast water soaks in when the soil is thoroughly wet. It runs from A (high infiltration and low runoff, typically sands) to D (very slow infiltration and high runoff, from clay, a high water table, or shallow soil over dense material).
- Drainage class. How quickly water is removed from a soil, in seven classes from very rapidly drained to very poorly drained. Some areas are marked Water or Variable instead.
- Tile drainage. Buried pipes that drain farm fields. Systematic tile is laid across a field in a regular grid. Random tile follows the wet spots. The map shows where contractors reported laying tile, so a field with no mapped tile may still be tiled.
- Municipal drain. A drain built under Ontario's Drainage Act and maintained by the municipality it runs through. Its cost is charged to the lands and roads named in the engineer's report, for the benefit they get, for using it as an outlet, or for water they send into it.
The full limits of a package are at site-maps.com/disclaimers.html.