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Rural Property Addressing in Western Australia

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Landgate has developed a one authoritative source of Property Street Addresses with a maintenance strategy to ensure a complete, current and accurate database that is available to government and the private sector.

Property Street Address is a fundamental database for a wide range of government and private sector organisations. A major component of the property street address is the property or street number. In Western Australia, the responsibility of allocating property numbers lies with Local Government. Until recently there have no rules or guidelines to follow in allocating property numbers. In rural areas a property number is often not assigned to a property and the resident continues to use the lot number, location number or property name as a substitute. This practice allows for duplication of addresses and a confusing non-systematic approach to addressing.

Landgate is addressing the issue of rural numbering. The lack of application of house or property numbers in semi urban fringes and rural areas hinders the development of a system that is useful for the entire state. Rural Addressing and Country Town Validation includes:

• the introduction of a distance based measurement system for rural numbering which follows the Australian Standard (AS4819:2003); and
• capture and validation of urban numbers in WA country towns.

The introduction of rural numbering into WA requires a commitment by Landgate to co-ordinate the process, local government to provide updated and new street number details with Landgate, and other agencies to utilise Landgate as the base property street address database custodian.

For each government and local government agency to commit to rural addressing there must be a real benefit. However most agencies realise that no single database is current, accurate or complete and that there is a real benefit to government and the private sector alike for a single property street address database. There is a critical dependency for a whole of Government approach with a particular emphasis on the requirement for strong support from Local Government.1. Principles

The following principles apply to rural addressing:

(a)	Landgate: The custodial responsibility of Landgate is to fulfill the ongoing maintenance, accuracy and quality of data for a state-wide addressing database.
(b)	Local governments: Local governments shall maintain control of the numbering process and offer good numbering integrity;
(c)	Spirit of cooperation: A spirit of cooperation between local government, other government agencies and Landgate is maintained;
(d)	Local governments adopt the “Procedures for the Maintenance of Rural Addressing in Western Australia” as a best practice procedure;
(e)	Local variations to these “procedures” may apply;
(f)	The benefits of a maintained, quality database for the whole of Western Australia be readily accessed by WALIS agencies and local governments;
(g)	Local governments undertake to advise Landgate of any renumbering or allocation of number to previously unnumbered properties; and
(h)	Government agencies and other users of the Landgate street address data undertake to advise Landgate of any corrections to the dataset.

2. Methodology and Processes

1.1 Early Numbering Process

The rural numbering process will be in accordance with the Australian/New Zealand Standard for Rural Addressing.

1.2 Rural Numbering Maintenance

Step 1

The property owner lodges a building approval request with the appropriate local government;

The building approval request must contain the location of the proposed entrance to the property;

Step 2

A payment is included in the local government building approval fee to cover the cost of the rural number and post;

Step 3

A copy of the A/NZ Standard “Geographic Information – Rural Street Numbering” is available from Standards Australia;

Step 4

The local government:

• assigns the number by measuring on the ground from the adjoining number; and
• erects a post and number plate maintaining the design standard;

Step 5

The local government notifies Landgate of the new address (refer to Form A);

Step 6

Landgate updates PSA database;

Step 7

The owner notifies utilities and agencies of their address;1.3 Change Management Processes

There are a number of activities that will influence existing addresses. Change Management Processes will need to be invoked to ensure the integrity of the system; 1.4 Where a road alignment changes

Where a road alignment changes

Change 1

The local government will change the road name sign to the new intersection and change the number ranges accordingly; 1.5 Where the position of a property crossover changes

Change 2

The property owner lodges a new entrance approval request with the appropriate local government;

The request must contain the location of the proposed entranced to the property; (refer to steps 2 to 7)1.6 Where an address / building is no longer in use

Change 3

The property owner notifies the local government;

The local government removes the number, post and plate and advises Landgate;

Landgate amends the PSA database; 1.7 Where any user of the data becomes aware of anomalous address data

Change 4

Any data user who discovers anomalies within the PSA dataset, is requested to notify Landgate using the “PSA Amendment Notification” (refer to Form B);

Landgate will take appropriate action to remedy the anomaly;

Landgate will amend the PSA database; and

Landgate advises the local government

View Rural property numbering in Western Australia - Capture and Validation process	- (16 kb)
View Rural property numbering in Western Australia - Maintenance process	- (22 kb)
View Rural property numbering in Western Australia - Change Management process	- (25 kb)

2. Glossary of terms and acronyms

Custodianship
"The principle of custodianship assigns to an agency certain rights and responsibilities for the collection of land information and the management and maintenance of this on behalf of the Western Australian Government and its agencies. The overriding philosophy in the activities associated with custodianship is that WALIS agencies manage the land information as trustees in a partnership to enable the integration of land information for the benefit of the WALIS community and the State of Western Australia. "WALIS - GUIDELINES FOR CUSTODIANSHIP, WALIS Executive Policy Committee - September 1994.

Landgate
The Landgate. The Western Australian Government Department with custodian responsibility for property street address.

GEONOMA
GEONOMA is Landgate’s computerised gazetteer of road and feature names for Western Australia. It is maintained on a daily basis to include all new and amended road and locality names in the state.

Local Governments
Any local government listed in the Western Australian Municipal Directory whether City, Shire or Town.

The Owner
The Owner is the person named as such on the official Certificate of Title.

Western Australian Land Information System (WALIS)
The Western Australian Land Information System (WALIS) is the Western Australian Government's mechanism for coordinating the management of its land and geographic or spatial information. WALIS is a consortium of more than twenty eight agencies, each with an interest in managing land or geographic information. Conclusion

The benefits of rural addressing to government and the community are already well known and documented.

The pilot project demonstrated beyond doubt the necessity for a coordinated and consistent approach to rural numbering. Several Shires in Western Australia have already undertaken some or all of the rural numbering process in their Shire. In these Shires, the lack of consultation with adjoining Shires has lead to many problems the most serious of which results in two identical addresses.

Landgate, as custodian of road and locality names, local government and locality boundaries and with pre-existing close communication networks with local government, is ideally positioned to take this role. 3. Form A. - Advice of Minor Street Numbering Changes

This form is for the use of local governments to advise Landgate of changes to street numbers, which will not be captured through the Digital Survey Lodgment process. 4. Form B. - PSA Amendment / Anomaly Notification Form

This form is for the use of Property Street Address data users to advise Landgate of anomalies which have been detected in Landgate’s PSA database.