City of Kelowna: Meeting the challenges of rapid growth using GIS

July 18, 2024

Joy Chan

City of Kelowna has been recognized with the 2024 Esri Special Achievement in GIS award. Find out more about their award-winning approach to using geospatial solutions in support of the City’s rapid growth.

As Canada’s fastest growing city, City of Kelowna’s population grew to 150,000+ in 2021 (up 13.5% from 2016) and is expected to reach 230,000 by 2040. Its stunning lakes, streams, mountain ranges and valleys provide a unique landscape that is a major draw for people to live in the community. However, these natural features limit the land areas for development and make the City vulnerable to natural hazards including flooding, landslides and wildfires.

As a midsize city facing rapid growth and climate change impacts, it is using creativity and the City’s enterprise geographic information system (GIS) platform to deliver innovative services to citizens and transform into an intelligent city.

“We’re focused on improving city operations and public services through digital transformation and automation,” said Cheryl Trent, data services & analytics manager, Information Services, City of Kelowna. “Using Esri’s enterprise geospatial platform, we’re able to advance our IT and business priorities without significantly increasing staff and software costs.”

As part of the City’s Information Services Department, Ms. Trent’s team manages the corporate GIS and provides analytics to various departments and leaders in support of data-driven decision making.

Transforming asset management

The City of Kelowna began using Esri technology in 2005 to manage data from its CAD system and geo-enable custom apps. While many City departments used maps and spatial data to support service delivery and core operations, not all departments were aware of the potential value GIS could deliver to the community.

This significantly changed in 2016, after Kelowna adopted the GIS-based solution Cityworks to support its Corporate Asset Management System. This resulted in tremendous efficiencies by digitally transforming their asset management processes.

“With Cityworks, we gained the ability to track the exact location and condition of City assets, making it easier to prioritize work and resources to maintain or repair assets of high value such as pressure-reducing valve (PRV) stations, water reservoirs and water treatment plants,” said Ms. Trent.

City of Kelowna staff can easily view and manage service requests through the Building Services – Service Request Dashboard, powered by Cityworks.

Recognizing the value of GIS, the City worked with Esri Canada’s Management Consulting team in 2019 to assess the needs of key departments. They developed a long-term geospatial strategy and roadmap to build a foundation for innovation. As a midsize city, Kelowna deals with many of the same challenges large cities have, including affordable housing, long-term infrastructure costs, climate change and maintaining transparency. Since then, the City has expanded its use of GIS to support land management, planning and development, transportation, emergency management and public engagement.

Enabling faster, smarter planning and development

Building 36,000 housing units to accommodate 70,000 more residents by 2040 is part of the City’s Official Community Plan. To better plan for growth, Kelowna created Model City, a parcel-based digital twin data model. It uses Esri’s ArcGIS technology to integrate disparate data and provide a comprehensive picture of what Kelowna looks like today, tomorrow and in the future.

“Before Model City, the City would use external consultants to generate a growth projection as part of Official Community Plan. This process would take weeks or even months. Now with the City’s GIS-based digital twin, we can build multiple growth scenarios in hours to understand the tradeoffs of various growth options,” said Kevin Stehle, business systems analyst, City of Kelowna.

A screenshot of Kelowna’s Model City Viewer app. The left panel shows a text summary of new features including the population analysis, summarize and identify tools. On the right is a map showing the City’s digital twin with a ribbon panel on top showing icons for the different tools.

City staff will soon be able to access Model City Viewer, a self-service tool that allows users to query Kelowna’s digital twin.

Engaging citizens in community development

The City released Explore3D Kelowna, which enables citizens to ask questions about planned developments in the City’s urban centres and receive immediate, up-to-date and complete answers. Citizens can use insightful 3D tools to see different scenarios—e.g., how their community would appear if buildings were higher or lower than proposed. The app helps the City overcome development challenges, effectively manage and synthesize large data repositories, and improve community engagement.

"As a city planner, I find the Explore3D Kelowna app very helpful and easy to use,” said Robert Miles, long range planning department manager, City of Kelowna. “It allows me to visualize the impact of different development scenarios on the City's urban form and livability. I can also share the results with citizens and stakeholders and get their feedback on the proposed plans. The app is a great tool for engaging the community and creating a shared vision for the future of Kelowna."

A 3D map of the City of Kelowna showing buildings under application, with a legend at the bottom right of the image. Red buildings on the map have their development application approved; yellow buildings have development application submitted; and blue buildings have their building permit approved and are under construction.

The public can use Explore3D Kelowna to see planned development in the city using insightful 3D tools.

Enabling a culture of innovation

Signing up for an Esri enterprise agreement gave the City affordable access to ArcGIS technology. “Whenever new ArcGIS tools are introduced, we try them to see how we could improve our existing workflows with them or create new apps to support business needs,” said Ms. Trent.

More importantly, the City’s leadership team fosters innovation by encouraging staff to learn from mistakes. “Failure is not deemed as failure. We are encouraged by our leaders to pivot when we fail and try again,” she noted.

"Our GIS program is a key enabler of our digital transformation and smart city initiatives. It allows us to leverage data and spatial analytics to optimize our operations, enhance our services and plan for the future. We are proud of the innovative solutions we have developed using Esri technology and the positive impacts they have on our community," said John Brennan, director of information services, City of Kelowna.

City of Kelowna’s example shows how giving powerful GIS technology to people with the right mindset can open up limitless possibilities for collaborative innovation—ultimately resulting in a huge win for current and future residents of Kelowna.

Explore ArcGIS