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Scary things
For the last couple of years I have been conscripted to present a workshop at a regional Arc/Info user’s group annual hoo-forah. Today was the 2016 get together. My workshop has focused on the topic of legal descriptions. And it can get downright scary listening to all the participants relate how they create and enter their shape files for parcels into their database. I guess my lot in life is to keep them from inflicting too much damage to the cadaster with their tasks.
I have been surprised over the last couple of years with the attitude and abilities of the group. A lot of really intelligent folks that take their job seriously. Some are little misguided in some areas, but all in all I’ve been impressed…up until today.
We discussed what I consider to be a safe and prudent approach to interpreting property description to get them “glued in” in a relatively representative manner. The whole time I was trying to emphasize the dangers in creating mosaics of parcels and their most assured misuse by a flippant end user. I have stressed over the years my opinion that a description is merely half of a boundary. The other half exists on the ground and there are specific instances that one may usurp the other. I keep to myself my opinion that boundaries cannot be properly shown without a bucket load of caveats (at the least) or some serious investigation including filed work (at the best). These people have a job to do and they are going to do it. I guess the best we can do is attempt some rudimentary instructions.
Several of the members worked in county assessor’s offices across the state and I discovered some downright scary practices. For example:
1. Junior-Senior rights really means which shape file got entered in first.
2. Bearings are witchcraft and usually pulled out of a surveyor’s backside…and no one can tell me anything about their Db reference…other than it’s State Plane (they think?).
3. North-South-East-West directions are held as 90 degree figures.
4. Curves are complex figures which require a PhD in calculus and probably wind up as hand drawn free form splines to make the parcel close.5. And the one that made me shake my head the most: Acreage on deed descriptions is usually wrong. Several of the folks agreed that their .shp file’s area was more precise that the deed description and most assessor’s info gets updated with the ‘new’ acreage. If a property owner complains about an updated area for tax assessment purposes, they’re told to contact a surveyor…and maybe the assessor will change the area.
I was appalled at this practice. I will agree that the acreage of a parcel may be recorded either inaccurately or incorrectly. But changing things up just because someone interpreted a deed with a shape file seems a bit drastic. Sadly it appears the handwriting is on the wall. Deeded boundaries and areas are now in the hands of those that harvest revenues. The proverbial fox watching the hen house.
I may bail on next year’s class…I’m getting too old to listen to some of the stuff they come up with. 🙁
PS – There was one gent there from a place called Universal City, in Bexar Co., Texas. I would love to be a fly on the wall when he and Kent finally meet…
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