Looking for postal code by Neighbourhood Improvement Areas (NIA)

[Martin Magdinier]

Hello,

I am looking for the list of postal code by Neighbourhood Improvement Areas (NIA) in Toronto in a csv xls or xml format. So far I found this PDF map ow.ly/ORhA1 this is a start but not very usable.

Thank you in advance for your help

Martin

[Keith McDonald COT Open Data Lead]

Saw your tweet as well Martin. Same as my tweet comment back, we can't provide postal codes due to copyright on the codes at Canada Post. We pay to use these for our work purposes but have encountered the ask many times. There may be work arounds (we hear) by community facing same needs as you Martin. Perhaps people will weigh in for you on this ....

Keith

[Joey Coleman]

Yes, Canada Post is aggressive in legal litigation against the open data
community.

Here's the background: http://geocoder.ca/?sued=1

Joey

On 29-Jun-15 11:01, Keith McDonald COT Open Data Lead wrote:
> Saw your tweet as well Martin. Same as my tweet comment back, we can't
> provide postal codes due to copyright on the codes at Canada Post. We
> pay to use these for our work purposes but have encountered the ask many
> times. There may be work arounds (we hear) by community facing same
> needs as you Martin. Perhaps people will weigh in for you on this ....
>
> Keith
>
> On Sunday, June 28, 2015 at 1:18:47 PM UTC-4, Martin Magdinier wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I am looking for the list of postal code by Neighbourhood
> Improvement Areas (NIA)

> <http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=e0bc186e20ee0410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD>

> in Toronto in a csv xls or xml format. So far I found this PDF map

> ow.ly/ORhA1 <http://t.co/inP4px5XTF>this is a start but not very usable.

>
> Thank you in advance for your help
>
> Martin
>

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[Stewart C. Russell]

Hi Martin,

>
> I am looking for the list of postal code by Neighbourhood Improvement
> Areas (NIA)

> <http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=e0bc186e20ee0410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD>

> in Toronto in a csv xls or xml format

What do you want to use it for? Enter a postal code, and see if it's in
an NIA? That won't quite work, as they don't exactly line up. For
instance, all of M1K isn't in the Eglinton East-Kennedy Park NIA*.

The first three characters of the postal code is all you can get for
free in Canada. The geographic data set is here:
http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/olc-cel/olc.action?objId=92-179-X&objType=2&lang=en&limit=0
- but it comes with a fairly limiting licence that means you can "not
merge or link the Information with any other databases for the purpose
of attempting to identify an individual person, business or organization"
(http://www.statcan.gc.ca/reference/licence-eng.html)

The other way is to get someone to intersect geocoder.ca's database
against the NIA boundaries, but that too isn't going to be perfect, and
might be a lot of work.

cheers,
Stewart


*: which, it appears, I live in. Woohoo! I wonder why at least ⅙ of this
NIA is taken up by a cemetery, though?

[Martin Magdinier]

(oh looks like I wasn't subscribe to this thread, just reading the answer now)
Joey, Keith, thank you for the update. I knew about Canada Post being a very strict with Postal Code usage.


Stewart, thank you for the pointers. Actually Forward Station Area level  (first three characters) will be enough. I'd like to use those to add information to the Toronto Building Permits dataset. If they don't map with NIA directly, I might use the information available from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_M_postal_codes_of_Canada

Thank you for the help.

Martin