Create multipart polygon from single part polygon based on proximity

[beckycrosswhite1]

I have a feature class with a bunch of single part polygons. Some of these polygons are within .25 miles of each other. I need to create a multipart polygon for each group of polygons that is within .25 miles of each other. Is there a means for automating this process?

[DanLee]

You can try the following:
1. Use the Aggregte Polygons tool (Cartography - Generalization) with a distance tolerance to get aggregated polygons.
2. Use the Spatial Join or Intersect tool to associate the aggregated polygon IDs with their input polygons.
3. Use the Dissolve tool to dissolve the input polygons by the aggregated polygon IDs (check Create Multipart).

Hope that works for you.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

Note that Aggregate (Cartography)
http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#//00700000000s000000
requires an ArcInfo license of ArcMap

[ChrisSnyder]

If you are down with Python, this code will assign a unique ID to the features that are within a given distance of each other. It relies on a recursive SelectByLocation.

[CliveCartwright]

I've been playing with this idea and I've come up with another way to do it.

First, use Feature To Line tool, then feed the result from that through the Feature To Polygon tool.

If you lose any attributes along the way, you can restore them by selecting attribute by location from the original data layer.

Worked for me. 🙂