What's New with the B.C. Geographic Warehouse

Retirement of ICF is being completed using a phased approach. 

• Step 1: Replacement of data in ICF views with corresponding data from ParcelMap BC. The B.C. Geographic Warehouse ICF views and columns will retain their same structure, but some columns will no longer be populated. See how ICF columns will be populated from ParcelMap BC. 
• Step 2: Retirement of the ICF public view (WHSE_CADASTRE.CBM_INTGD_CADASTRAL_FABRIC_PUB_SVW) 
• Step 3: Retirement of the ICF government view (WHSE_CADASTRE.CBM_INTGD_CADASTRAL_FABRIC_SVW) 

The ICF views in the BCGW are now being populated with data from ParcelMap BC. PMBC is refreshed weekly on Sunday evenings and population of the ICF views in BCGW happens the following evening. 

Since 2000, ICF has been the authoritative spatial representation of land ownership of Crown and private parcels in British Columbia. The dataset is a product of GeoBC, working on behalf of the Integrated Cadastral Information Society, which was formed around the need for the data and has proven to be a successful model of public and private collaboration. ICF data has informed emergency planning and response, treaty negotiations, administrative boundaries, and identifying legal rights and interests on Crown land. Being a geospatial dataset, it has been used in all manner of map products over the years. 

In 2012, the Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia (LTSA) was approved to develop PMBC, a business opportunity largely enabled by workflow improvements resulting from a shift to digital survey plans. ICF data was used to kickstart PMBC and in 2016, the DataBC Program published the first release of PMBC in the B.C. Geographic Warehouse and made a subset of it available under the Open Government Licence – British Columbia. 

ICF and PMBC data have been maintained separately in the intervening years while the LTSA built up PMBC operations and PMBC data quality matured. In January 2021, GeoBC discontinued updates to the ICF as part of a phased data ICF retirement plan. The next phase is underway, which will see the ICF data layer in the B.C. Geographic Warehouse loaded with PMBC information, to allow time for ministries to shift their applications to using PMBC directly. The final phase will see ministries’ access to the ICF removed and the data no longer available. 

Although the ICF will soon be fully retired after 22 years of delivering immeasurable value to governments, industry and citizens, it leaves behinds a valuable legacy that PMBC is ready to build upon. 

• ParcelMap BC has become the province’s authoritative cadastral parcel fabric. 

• GeoBC is no longer operationally responsible for updating the ICF, and as a result the ICF has not been updated since January 2021. 

• While the column names in the ICF tables and views are not changing, the values in some columns will change. Applications and layer files that depend on specific values in ICF columns may not work as expected. 

• If you are just using the DataBC Layer Library or the TSAT toolbar in the GTS environment, nothing needs to be done; we will edit the affected layer files once the change is made.  

If you have your own layer files or applications that use ICF data, you can test these using the B.C. Geographic Warehouse TEST environment: 

• Host: bcgw-i.bcgov 

• Service: idwtest1.bcgov 

• iMapBC (public) or iMapBC (internal)

On June 7, 2022, the ParcelMap BC Owner Type values will change, resulting in modified values in the ICF OWNERSHIP_CLASS field. Testing of TSAT/iMapBC TEST should be done after this date.  

To provide comments or request more information about the phased retirement of ICF, please contact GeoBC.

The Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia (LTSA) has announced that the ParcelMap BC Owner Type changes are scheduled for release May 29, 2022. As ParcelMap BC is loaded weekly (Sunday evenings) into the B.C. Geographic Warehouse, BCGW users should see the change on June 7, 2022.

The providers of LTSA are implementing this change to make it easier for clients to switch from using the Integrated Cadastral Fabric (ICF) to ParcelMap BC, as the ICF is being retired. 

• ParcelMap BC parcel fabric data can be consumed in several ways, including:
  • By direct connection to the B.C. Geographic Warehouse
  • By data download from the B.C. Geographic Warehouse
  • Through WMS services
  • By packaged product download
  • Through ArcGIS Online (AGO, B.C.'s Map Hub)

Any application using these services and depending on specific values in the Owner Type field may be affected.

• We will be modifying the DataBC Layer Library (used by the TSAT toolbar in the GTS environment).

If you have your own layer files or applications that use ParcelMap BC data and depend on the values in the Owner Type field, you should check these before June 7, 2022 and modify them once the data has been changed.

For questions or comments about the changes to PMBC, please visit the Data Systems and Services request system.