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REQUEST for Subdivision Ordinance specs
If you had a chance to set the course for the subdivision ordinance in your community at the very beginning – from scratch – from the nuts and bolts staking requirements, lot and road design, recording specs, inspections, flow charted process phases, drainage and utilities – the whole gambit – what would you put in the ordinance? Wording, time requirements, anything applicable to the process will be fielded here. This is intended for a small, rural, farm community’s county in a PLSS state.
Of course, as an LS, my first concern is for validated adherence to the state licensing board’s specs; plus, ample monumentation such as r/w offset monumentation; other offset staking; intermediary points along long, difficult boundaries; OPUS derived SPC (permits proper placement within our GIS); retracement of the parent tract first and separately prior to subdivision within the parent tract; field and plat review of the survey and the fees there for; – any issues that you can think of, please state your preferences. Similarly, all of us have encountered the ridiculous, mickey mouse spec that serves no good purpose; please be so kind as to state what you would avoid also.
Manuals, texts, PDFs, etc. of existing specs that you’d like to display or reference, should they go on in size more than practical to display here; or if you’d prefer under any circumstances to respond privately, please be so kind as to email me off site at [email protected].
My goal is to formulate an ordinance sensible for our small community without all the big city boiler plate that serves no practical purpose here like that which carpet bagging consultants try to saddle us with. Some of the recommendations are so ridiculous that they are bound to make headaches for LSs during future retracements, confuse those locals enforcing the process, and leave the public vulnerable to poor designs, shoddy work, and tax payer liabilities from developers’ greed.
i’m asking here because it is us surveyors who are the most intimately involved with this unique development of the landscape. Most of us have many years, decades in fact, of in depth knowledge of this work from our own professional histories.
If you’d be so kind as to share your thoughts on these specs that you’d like to see in the ideal ordinance, it would be a tremendous aid to our small community.
thank you,
david -
9 Replies
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I would look out for ma and pa. Think about the family with land, but of modest means, that wants each of the 3 kids to get a house lot. By no means do such benign intentions mean that they should be exempt from regulations, but perhaps they should not be in the same category as a developer creating 30 prime residential lots for sale. One approach common around here is to create at least two categories — typically “major” and “minor” subdivision, with the requirements being streamlined somewhat for the latter. Along these lines, I’d include some waiver provisions so that the administrative entity (board, officer, whatever) has some discretion when dealing with low-impact projects.
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First and foremost – if you want a particular action to be required MAKE SURE IT IS IN YOUR NEW REGULATIONS!!!!!!!
Secondly write in the process that will be used to add or alter the regulations and follow it!!!!!!!!!!!!
We have an adjoining county that I fight with every time I make the mistake of accepting work over there. They have added an immense amount of BS to their ‘regulations’ without every getting it into the written regulations and without following proper (State Statutes) procedures.
As suggested by Cee Gee: Major and Minor Subdivision process. Major being anything over 5 lots and any number of lots if it requires new infrastructure.
If you have an existing control network, then the requirement of having it on a published coordinate system is all right. If you do not have a sufficiently dense control network for the county there is no reason why those who do not usually work on a state plane system should have to do so just to make adding info to your GIS easier for the county offices.
Minor subdivisions should be a straight forward process to accomplish and a minimal burden on the individual property owner.
If you plan to implement drafting standards – spell them out.
Make sure that nothing suggested by others in this planning process would create a conflict with the state standards of practice.
If you add requirements of signature blocks for utility companies, 911 coordinators, health department officials, etc…, make sure to run those by the respective people who will need to sign them. I have actually done work where the planning commission had language that the power company objected to – it was a hassle getting it resolved.
Make sure that any design requirements will actually be realistically achievable on the terrain in your county.
Most surrounding counties require a 50′ radius cul-de-sac. Mine has a requirement of a 70′. I can actually do a figure 8 turn in a 70′ cul-de-sac driving a full size pick-up.
Make sure that since a minor subdivision would require no new street construction that the regulations do not require a signature block by the commission engineer or road foreman accepting the streets.
There may be instances where a major subdivision (more than 5 lots) may not require new infrastructure. Have some common sense language about when engineered drawings and as-builts will be required or not.
There are probably more items, but that is just a few off the top of my head.
Jon Payne
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Thanks Cee Gee and Jon, these are excellent responses that i highly value.
They will help keep me focused on practical solutions. If i can continue to accumlate these well seasoned practices, we can be successful here.
thanks,
david -
Not all surveyors have purchased survey-grade GPS units. Dictating that such details be provided when it serves no real purpose to the client borders on exclusionary tactics to prevent specific surveyors from doing subdivisions in the county.
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In our town before a record plat is accepted all the lot pins have to be set. This is a good idea but a poor practice. Sewer, Comms, gas and stuff goes in the back of the lots and these often disturb or destroy the back pins. I would prefer the back of the lots to be staked with tall wood stakes and for the pins to be set after the grading and utility construction.
Another problem is that some fence in their easements and others do not. This makes it a real headache when doing maintenance such as rodding out a sewer line.
I like the idea of a major and minor differential when it comes to platting. Our county has little in the way of restrictions and many of the newer subdivisions built outside our city limits fall apart almost the day they are built. Roads with no base that crumble within months. Houses with 30″ centers. (yes, I’ve measured some)outside of our city. I guess the county does not use the standard BOCA specs for homes outside of our city.
All of our regulations are in Chapter 19 and they are on the City of Lawton webpage. Also the engineering specs for streets, stormwater, water, sewer are located on the Engineering tab. These are kept current and are PDF’s of the actual AutoCAD drawings. Our regs would be overkill for rural but all the wording has been hashed and rehashed by engineers, planners and attorney. It might give you some ideas. You likely will find a few things that you might not have considered.
Deral
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David,
Please don’t request an OPUS derived solution. OPUS is not always right and the NGS has about 20 disclaimers placed all over the site. Just require, if you must, a SPC that meets your state’s minimum accuracy requirements.
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I agree with Cee Gee. Also, I would recommend that you keep it simple and have a definitions page where every subdivision term is clearly defined in everyday language with examples when appropriate. I have been before boards where we have spent four sessions debating the meaning of a term in the ordinance. In one such case the argument went to the Maine Supreme Court.
The biggest problem I have seen is when towns, in order avoid the work of developing their own ordinance, steal or borrow the ordinance of another town. Usually it is the ordnance of a larger town or city. When it comes time to implement the ordinance and the debate ensues, the people find out that they have boxed themselves into a very restrictive set of binding rules that do not fit their community at all.
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I JUST did this for my town. It’s mirrored after our County’s Ordinance, and my dad had a big hand in that one. VERY user friendly, but VERY Texas Specific.
Sorry couldn’t be more help.
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BUMP!! (For David.) 🙂
Admins Wife
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