VALPARAISO | Wondering if you have enough room on your property to expand the size of your home or build a new garage?

Does it look as though a neighbor may be laying claim to more than their own property? And just who owns that nearby land anyway?

The answer to these questions and others are now available online compliments of Porter County and the geographical information system in development for years.

The GIS website, which offers aerial photographs, road names, parcel numbers, owner names, addresses and even locations of waterways, is available at http://porterin.mygisonline.com.

The various levels of information are available for nearly every parcel in the county, said GIS Data Base Administrator Chuck Miller.

Users navigate their way to the parcel or area of the county in question, and then have several tools at their disposal, he said. The far right side of the page offers the option of calling up an aerial photograph, parcel lines, subdivision names, corporate boundaries and waterway designations.

The adjacent tool box offers users the opportunity to measure distances on the map, zoom in and out, and identify owners, addresses and taxing designations.

The site has come in handy for developers, as well as the county auditor, surveyor and plan commission offices, Miller said. The information has also been shared with the cities of Valparaiso and Portage, which are adding their own layers of data.

The county has spent the last year adding its own data after receiving a base version of the map from The Sidwell Company.

An effort is under way to secure a grant from the Indiana Department of Homeland Security to upgrade the system so users can download the data and be able to manipulate it for their own purposes, he said.