Glendale GIS MCP Server

An MCP server that gives hackathon teams, and their AI agents, easy access to the hazard maps and city GIS data for Glendale, California: which mapped hazards apply at an address, what community resources are nearby, and the City of Glendale layers behind them.

It was built for Jewel City Hacks 5, for teams working on emergency preparedness: helping residents understand the hazards where they live and how to prepare.

Jewel City Hacks 5


When	Saturday, September 26, 2026, 8:00 AM – 8:00 PM
Where	Glendale Community College, Math Discovery Center, 1500 N Verdugo Rd, Glendale, CA 91208
Theme	"Think Globally, Build Locally": create technology that makes cities smarter, more connected, and more inclusive
Hosts	Hacker Fund and Glendale Tech, with the City of Glendale Economic Development Division and the GCC Computer Science Club
Teams	1–4 people; students, professionals and residents welcome. High school students must be 14 or older, and anyone under 18 needs parental consent.
Register	luma.com/jewelcityhacks5

Schedule: check-in 8:00 AM · project submission closes 6:00 PM · demo expo 6:15 PM (5-minute presentations) · closing ceremony and winners 7:15 PM · check-out by 8:00 PM.

Judging: technical execution 40%, social/local impact 20%, presentation 15%, feasibility 15%, creativity 10%. Prizes: Grand Champion, Best Hardware Hack, Best Software Hack, and Top 5 Hackathon Hackers.

Event details are from hacker.fund/jewelcityhacks and the Luma page as of September 18, 2026. Check there for changes. Questions about the event: team [at] hacker.fund.

What this server gives you

It finds, queries and normalizes authoritative data. It doesn't interpret risk, rank hazards or give advice; that's what teams build.

Ask	Tool
Which hazards apply at an address or point?	`hazards_at_location`, or `wildfire_zone`, `flood_zone`, `seismic_zones`, `dam_inundation`, `debris_flow`
Nearest fire stations, police, hospitals, schools, libraries, parks, bus stops?	`nearest_resources`
Zoning or parcel at a location, schools of a type, bus stops on a route, any layer by attribute or area?	`query_dataset`
What data is there, and what do the fields mean?	`list_datasets`, `describe_dataset`
Is this a valid Glendale address?	`geocode_address`
What can this server do? Where's live emergency information?	`read_guide`

Every tool takes a location as a street address ({"address": "613 E Broadway"}) or coordinates ({"lat": 34.1466, "lon": -118.2483}). Results cite their source, and each feature carries a ref for fetching the full live record.

Data (21 datasets):

Hazards: CAL FIRE Fire Hazard Severity Zones (2025), California Geological Survey fault rupture, liquefaction and landslide zones, FEMA flood zones, DWR dam inundation areas, and USGS post-fire debris-flow assessments.
City of Glendale: city boundary, fire stations and districts, police station, hospitals, schools, libraries, parks, Beeline bus stops, ZIP codes, neighborhood zones, zoning, streets, and parcels (queried live).

Most data comes from an offline snapshot of the public ArcGIS services (about 35 MB), so queries are fast and don't load the city's servers.

Not included: real-time information (active fires, evacuation orders, weather warnings, earthquakes). See Real-Time Emergency Information for the official sources and feeds to use instead.

Try it

You need Python 3.10 or later. On first run the server downloads the data snapshot (about 6 MB) from this repository's releases, checks its SHA-256, and caches it. Install it one of two ways, then connect your assistant below.

Option A: uv (recommended)

uv runs the server straight from GitHub, with nothing to install permanently:

uvx --from git+https://github.com/HackerFund/GlendaleGisMcp glendale-gis-mcp --fetch-snapshot

That downloads and verifies the data, then exits, so your assistant doesn't wait for it later. The command to give your assistant is:

uvx --from git+https://github.com/HackerFund/GlendaleGisMcp glendale-gis-mcp

Option B: pip

python3 -m venv ~/glendale-gis-mcp
source ~/glendale-gis-mcp/bin/activate        # Windows: %USERPROFILE%\glendale-gis-mcp\Scripts\activate
pip install git+https://github.com/HackerFund/GlendaleGisMcp
glendale-gis-mcp --fetch-snapshot              # download and verify the data

The command to give your assistant is the full path ~/glendale-gis-mcp/bin/glendale-gis-mcp (Windows: %USERPROFILE%\glendale-gis-mcp\Scripts\glendale-gis-mcp.exe). To update later, force a reinstall, since the version number doesn't change between commits:

pip install --force-reinstall --no-deps git+https://github.com/HackerFund/GlendaleGisMcp

Option C: clone this repository

Run the code from a checkout, which is also what you want if you plan to change it:

git clone https://github.com/HackerFund/GlendaleGisMcp.git
cd GlendaleGisMcp
python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .                               # add ".[dev]" for the tests
glendale-gis-mcp --fetch-snapshot              # download and verify the data

The command to give your assistant is the absolute path printed by echo $PWD/.venv/bin/glendale-gis-mcp.

To pull updates later: git pull, then pip install -e . again if the dependencies changed. To build your own snapshot instead of using the published one (about 1.5 minutes, and it queries the live agency servers):

python scripts/build_snapshot.py
export GLENDALE_GIS_SNAPSHOT_PATH=$PWD/snapshot

Connect your AI assistant

The examples use the uv command. With pip or a clone, swap it for the full path to glendale-gis-mcp and drop the --from … arguments.

Claude Code

claude mcp add glendale-gis -- uvx --from git+https://github.com/HackerFund/GlendaleGisMcp glendale-gis-mcp

Check it with claude mcp list. (With pip: claude mcp add glendale-gis -- ~/glendale-gis-mcp/bin/glendale-gis-mcp.)

Claude Desktop

Open Settings → Developer → Edit Config, add the entry below, then quit Claude Desktop with ⌘Q and reopen it. Use the full path to uvx (which uvx), because Claude Desktop doesn't see your shell's PATH:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "glendale-gis": {
      "command": "/full/path/to/uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "git+https://github.com/HackerFund/GlendaleGisMcp", "glendale-gis-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

With pip, use "command": "/Users/you/glendale-gis-mcp/bin/glendale-gis-mcp" and no args.

uv caches the code it downloaded, so a restart alone may keep an older commit. To always check GitHub, add "--refresh" as the first item in args. To pin a version for the event, put a tag or commit on the URL: git+https://github.com/HackerFund/GlendaleGisMcp@<tag>.

Gemini CLI

Add this to ~/.gemini/settings.json (or .gemini/settings.json in a project), then restart the CLI:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "glendale-gis": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "git+https://github.com/HackerFund/GlendaleGisMcp", "glendale-gis-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

The Gemini CLI also has gemini mcp add <name> <command> [args...]; put -- before the command so its own flags aren't confused with uv's. See Google's MCP documentation for the current syntax. Use /mcp inside the CLI to list connected servers.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT can't run this server today. Its custom connectors only reach remote MCP servers over HTTPS, so a local install like the above isn't an option, and its connectors authenticate with OAuth or no authentication, per OpenAI's documentation. Our hosted server uses a shared key sent as an HTTP header, which ChatGPT doesn't send.

Custom connectors also need Developer Mode (Settings → Apps → Advanced) and a paid plan.

If you want to use ChatGPT, the options are:

Use Claude, the Gemini CLI or another MCP client for the data, and ChatGPT for the rest of your build.
Ask the organizers for an open (no-key) endpoint for your team.
Call the core package directly from your own Python code (see Development) and pass the results to ChatGPT.

Other clients

Cursor, VS Code, Zed, Windsurf and most other MCP clients take the same command and arguments; check their docs for where the config lives. To poke at the server by hand:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uvx --from git+https://github.com/HackerFund/GlendaleGisMcp glendale-gis-mcp

Hosted server (Google Cloud Run)

Teams can use the hosted server instead of installing anything. It speaks streamable HTTP and needs the shared hackathon key on every request. The organizers hand out the key through the event channel.

MCP endpoint: https://glendale-gis-mcp-1053589358088.us-west2.run.app/mcp
Key: Authorization: Bearer <key> header (never in the URL)
Health check (no key needed): curl https://glendale-gis-mcp-1053589358088.us-west2.run.app/health
Rate limit: 120 requests a minute per key. Over that you get 429 with a Retry-After header.

A missing or wrong key returns 401. If the hosted server is down, the local options above give you the same tools and data. Deployment steps are in docs/deploy.md.

Claude Code:

claude mcp add --transport http glendale-gis https://glendale-gis-mcp-1053589358088.us-west2.run.app/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer <key>"

Gemini CLI (~/.gemini/settings.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "glendale-gis": {
      "httpUrl": "https://glendale-gis-mcp-1053589358088.us-west2.run.app/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <key>" }
    }
  }
}

Check Google's MCP documentation for the current field names.

Claude Desktop and ChatGPT can't send a custom header to a remote MCP server, so they can't use the hosted endpoint with a key. Use a local install for those.

Keep the key out of anything you publish: no screenshots, no commits, no Devpost submissions.

Try a question

Ask, for example: "Is 613 E Broadway in Glendale in a flood zone?" or "What's the nearest fire station to 1000 W Glenoaks Blvd?" Ask "What can the Glendale GIS server do?" for a tour.

Development

Clone it as in Option C, install with pip install -e ".[dev]", then:

pytest                  # 339 tests; none of them touch the network
ruff check . && ruff format .

AGENTS.md holds the project's rules and design decisions, and Plans/ has the research notes and the phased plan. The core package has no MCP imports, so you can use it as a plain Python library:

from glendale_gis.core.snapshot import Snapshot
from glendale_gis.core import hazards

snap = Snapshot.load("snapshot")                    # or the downloaded copy in your cache
result = hazards.hazards_at_location(snap, hazards.locate(snap, 34.1466, -118.2483))
print(result.wildfire.status, result.flood.matches[0].attributes["FLD_ZONE"])

Docs

Reading the Snapshot Data: GeoJSON, fields, each layer, and how to read each hazard
Real-Time Emergency Information: official alerts and live data feeds
Inside a connected client, call read_guide("about") for the full tour.

Please read

The hazard layers are regulatory maps, not site-specific assessments. Being outside a mapped zone doesn't mean there's no hazard. For example, CAL FIRE "NonWildland" means unzoned, not safe from wildfire.
City of Glendale GIS data is for general information and is not a substitute for legal descriptions or surveys.
This server has no real-time data. In an emergency, follow official alerts.

License

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. It is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See LICENSE for details.

The data comes from public agency services and keeps their terms and disclaimers.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Plans		Plans
docs		docs
scripts		scripts
src/glendale_gis		src/glendale_gis
tests		tests
.gcloudignore		.gcloudignore
.gitignore		.gitignore
AGENTS.md		AGENTS.md
CLAUDE.md		CLAUDE.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
Procfile		Procfile
README.md		README.md
pyproject.toml		pyproject.toml
requirements.txt		requirements.txt
snapshot.lock.json		snapshot.lock.json

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Glendale GIS MCP Server

Jewel City Hacks 5

What this server gives you

Try it

Option A: uv (recommended)

Option B: pip

Option C: clone this repository

Connect your AI assistant

Claude Code

Claude Desktop

Gemini CLI

ChatGPT

Other clients

Hosted server (Google Cloud Run)

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Development

Docs

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Glendale GIS MCP Server

Jewel City Hacks 5

What this server gives you

Try it

Option A: uv (recommended)

Option B: pip

Option C: clone this repository

Connect your AI assistant

Claude Code

Claude Desktop

Gemini CLI

ChatGPT

Other clients

Hosted server (Google Cloud Run)

Try a question

Development

Docs

Please read

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