Parcel Fabric vs. Polygon feature class (for land parcel management)

Question

I'm wondering if I should migrate my existing parcel polygons (stored as a feature class in a geodatabase) to a parcel fabric in ArcMap. What are the advantages of doing this? I work for a county so the parcels are used mainly to store attributes (who owns which parcels in a graphic representation etc.) and general information - NOT for being survey accurate.

Answer 1

Honestly, you sound like just the kind of person Esri developed parcel fabrics for. I would recommend watching (or at least skimming) this hour-long webinar to see just what you can (and can't) do with parcel fabrics.

Answer 2

Parcel Fabrics add a lot of overhead to manage. I would say it is worth it IF:
1) you need to manage the legal descriptions of the properties
2) you need the accuracy to be survey grade (which it appears you don't)
3) you need to manage parcel changes over time (subdivisions, boundary line adjustments, etc.)

From a county government perspective, it is really useful for the typical recorder's office, not so much for the assessor's office (who just needs to manage lots of parcel attributes).

Answer 3

If you want to learn more about the benefits of managing your parcels in the ArcGIS Solution that uses a (parcel fabric) you are welcome to join the free Land Records Meetup and get access to all past presentations. In a nutshell:

1. Designed for efficiency and being able to maintain both legal information (dimensions, area, dates..) as well as geometry
2. Maintains data integrity between parcels (no slivers and gaps) and does not crack lines ("back lot problem") using line-points
3. Every split/merge always creates historic parcels to support title research easier
4. Parcel specific tools that make workflows efficient while maintaining integrity
5. Vertical alignment - all parcel "types", like subdivisions, lots, tax parcels, easements can share common point and always align once the point moves
6. Part of a bigger solution that include many maps and apps that are ready to use and configurable and can be deployed on the web and mobile devices
7. Part of core ArcGIS Desktop - does not require any customization or special licensing. Works out of the box. Scalable.
8. Create your tax map books automatically using data driven pages.
9. Share your authoritative data with other departments and the public
10. View your data in 2D and 3D using ArcGIS Pro (part of desktop) and publish it to 3D scenes
11. More...