Planning Resources & Guides
Practical guides for public notice mailings, GIS data, and planning workflows · Last updated May 16, 2026
These articles document the specific bureaucratic and technical friction points that come up when you actually try to do parcel work: pulling owner names out of a county ArcGIS REST endpoint, printing Avery 5160 labels that don't drift down the sheet, deciding what notice radius your jurisdiction actually requires. Each guide is written for someone with a deadline, not for someone browsing.
If you're a public-sector planner, a land-use attorney's paralegal, a small-firm GIS consultant, or anyone else who has to mail notices and prove you mailed them: the goal is to save you an hour of trial-and-error per task. Most articles include working URLs, sample queries, and the exact error messages you'll see when something breaks.
The articles below are listed newest first. The most-read entries are the ArcGIS REST URL guide, the Avery 5160 alignment troubleshooting piece, and the public-notice-radius requirements rundown. New articles get added when a question shows up enough times in support email or GSC queries to justify a long-form answer.
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How the Parcel Atlas Is Built, Verified, and Maintained
How county REST endpoints enter the atlas, how the weekly liveness check catches broken endpoints, what the atlas covers and what it does not, and who is behind it.
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How to Get Parcel GeoJSON Data from Your County GIS
Find and download parcel polygon data from county GIS portals, state clearinghouses, and commercial providers.
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Avery 5160 Printing Tips & Alignment Guide
Fix label alignment issues, set up your printer correctly, and get clean mailing labels.
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Public Notice Radius Requirements: What Varies by Jurisdiction
Notification distances range from 200 to 1000+ feet. Here is how to verify the requirement for your project and location.
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Deduplicating Mailing Lists: LLCs, Trusts & Same-Owner Parcels
Deduplicate public notice mailing lists when the same owner appears under different names or entities.
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What is GeoJSON? A Planner's Introduction
A plain-language guide to GeoJSON files, geometry types, coordinates, and how to use them for planning work.
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How to Find an ArcGIS Parcel Layer URL (FeatureServer & MapServer Guide)
Locate ArcGIS REST service endpoints for county parcel data, with a FeatureServer vs MapServer comparison and field identification tips.
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How to Find Your Parcel Number from Your Address (2026 Guide)
Three reliable ways to find the APN, PIN, or tax parcel ID for any U.S. property from its street address, with state-by-state format notes and a free lookup tool.
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What is an APN (Assessor's Parcel Number)? A Quick Guide
What APNs are, how formats vary across counties, and how to find the parcel number for any property.
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Understanding Parcel Data Fields: Owner, Situs, APN & More
What common parcel data fields mean: situs vs mailing address, owner names, use codes, and how to work with them on planning projects.
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How to Run a Public-Notice Mailing for a Planning Hearing (2026 Workflow)
End-to-end workflow demonstrating the full UrbanKit tool ecosystem: project address → parcel ID → radius selection → affected-owner list → printed Avery 5160 labels. 5-step HowTo with state-specific notice requirements (CA, FL, TX, NY, IL, WI, OR).
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How to Find a Property Owner by Address (2026 Guide)
Four reliable methods to find the legal owner of a U.S. property from its street address — county REST API, Assessor portal, paid services, deed records. State-by-state owner-name access notes and the LLC / trust edge cases.
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How to Print Avery 5160 Labels from Excel (2026 Step-by-Step Guide)
Three methods compared for printing Avery 5160 labels from an Excel spreadsheet: free CSV-to-labels tool, Word mail merge, Avery Design & Print. Plus the common alignment and ZIP-code mistakes.
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Why Avery 5160 Labels Print Out of Alignment — And How to Fix It
Diagnose and fix Avery 5160 alignment problems: scaling, wrong paper size, tray orientation, and printer-specific fixes for HP, Brother, Canon, and Epson.
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GeoJSON vs Shapefile: Which Format Should Planners Use?
A side-by-side comparison of GeoJSON and Shapefile: file structure, size limits, browser support, coordinate systems, and when to use each.
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Avery 5160 Labels Not Printing Correctly? Common Problems & Fixes
Symptom-based troubleshooting for common Avery 5160 print problems: not lining up, won't print, blank sheets, smudging, paper jams, and more. Each symptom maps to a fix.
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How to Query County Parcel Data by Owner Name via ArcGIS REST API
WHERE clause syntax, UPPER/LIKE wildcard patterns, field-name discovery via
?f=json, and worked examples for Kane County IL, King County WA, and Sonoma County CA. -
Public Notice Radius: 300 vs 500 ft — Which Does Your City Require?
No national standard exists. How to find your jurisdiction's notification distance, measure it correctly, and avoid the most common mailing list mistakes.
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Parcel Owner Names Blank in Search Results? Here's Why
Three causes cover most blank parcel owner fields: county privacy redaction, a geometry-only layer, or the wrong layer in a multi-layer service. With county examples and a fix for each.
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ArcGIS Layer Requires Authentication: A Planner's Workaround
Hit HTTP 499 or 401 on a county ArcGIS layer? Four workarounds planners use to find the public version without GIS developer access or vendor tokens.
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FeatureServer vs MapServer: Which ArcGIS REST Endpoint to Use
What each service type does, when MapServer can substitute for FeatureServer, real county endpoint examples, and the query syntax that works on both.
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How to Convert ArcGIS REST JSON to GeoJSON (3 Methods)
Three ways to convert Esri JSON to GeoJSON: the f=geojson query parameter, @terraformer/arcgis in JavaScript, and ogr2ogr on the command line. Includes CRS gotchas and working Kane County examples.