The Westchester County Department of Information Technology has been awarded a $22,500 state grant to create an inventory of vacant properties along the Hudson River that will be used to further open space planning initiatives at the regional, county and municipal levels.

The project, funded through the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's Hudson River Estuary Grant Program, will establish baseline property information that local and state planners, open space organizations (Open Space Institute, Scenic Hudson, and local land trusts) can use in their land preservation efforts. The funds will be used primarily for data development, hard-copying mapping and building Internet mapping data viewers.

The program would enable the county to continue assisting local governments in building a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database as well as establish baseline parcel-level data for municipal open space plans. This effort, which will be conducted at a much finer level of detail, will augment the "Open Space" mapping and inventory previously conducted by the Planning Department.

Results from the study will be integrated into an online mapping program hosted by Westchester County GIS. The project is anticipated to begin in spring 2006.