So, when adding businesses to OSM I’ve always drawn a building, appropriately tagged the building, and attached a businesses information to that building. However, I am second guessing now whether there might be a more appropriate way to represent businesses. I’ll provide an example however, I’m hoping for an answer that can be applied more generally to adding almost any business with exceptions of course.
Example: there is a construction equipment hire company in an industrial/heavy commercial area. The company occupies a fenced off site where half the site is a depot/storage yard for their equipment and the other half is taken up by a warehouse type building. Construction equipment can be stored in the warehouse, and there is an annex off the side of the warehouse that serves as a company office. Should I drawn the building and tag it as shop=plant_hire and fill out the companies details for the building… or should I draw around the fenced off site, encompassing the depot and the building and tag it as shop=plant_hire, remove building=yes, and fill out the companies details for the whole site? In this case I would still draw the building but just tag it as a warehouse. I feel the second option might be better as it indicates the whole site belongs to the company and serves the purpose of construction equipment hire. Other opinions would be great!
It really depends on the place. In the “industrial zones” around here (France), it is often enough, and simpler, to just tag the building as shop, as most of the space around them is car parks, and not always clear which to which shop.
But in other instances, just like the one you describe, the whole area is fenced, and clearly part of the shop. In this case, if you have time and local knowledge (hard to guess from aerials), it’s really better to tag the shop on the whole area, along with the fence, and the building(s) separate.
Your question has been discussed in several earlier topics and as far as I can say there is no strict rule how to go ahead. It is possible to tag the business directly to the complete premises, or to a building within the premises or to a separate node set into the premises or a building. All these options are in use depending on the situation on ground and the preferences of the mapper.
Again all of these options will be rendered in the standard map in different ways:
Owner tagged to the premises:
Owner tagged to a building outline:
Owner tagged as separate node:
So even the rendering style may affect the decision how to tag.
Anyhow let me add: If you prefer a structured tagging then you should always keep different object separate:
The premises tagged as landuse=* + additional tags as fitting
Buildings tagged as building=* + additional tags as fitting
The company or shop tagged as such on a separate node or on a separate area on the building outline.
Rarely will I tag a business to a building, mostly on a POI. There’s though cases like some supermarket chains here like Eurospin, Lidl, Tigota, Conad, Tigre to name a few who mostly have discrete supermarket purpose designed buildings constructed. These I mostly have done with their supermarket particulars on the building and a main entrance point with the address (an Italian particular, buildings have no ‘numero civici’). So happens, then if not too cluttered, the addresses will render nicely separate from the POI. Helps routers too, to get to the sliding doors.
Agreed … whereas I did not give a recommendation but just described the “status quo”.
Although I tend to agree this is at least questionable. I have just been informed that using correct tags on an object to support rendering is not “tagging for the renderer”. That would only be the case if completely false tags are used to enforce a certain rendering, see this post:
From that point of view it would be fine to make a choice on how to tag a business based on the way how it would be rendered in carto as long as there is no conflict with a wideley accepted tagging rule for such an issue.
