I was thinking of some interesting projects I was involved in years ago. As an instrument operator, locating a
potential easement for billboard construcion was particularly interesting. I think my coworkers were calling it a
viewing easement. I'm at a loss as to how we did the survey back in the '89 to '90 time frame. There must be some
kind of standard out there specifying a minimum viewable distance. What's your experience with billboard easements?
In Oklahoma billboard easements are just like all other conveyances and dedications....usually fubared.?ÿ I deal with these regularly since most now desire some sort of connection to the grid.?ÿ
There are plenty of old billboards out there have been there forever.?ÿ About half (or more) don't have any described easement at all, just some sort of perpetual lease mumbo-jumbo from the property owner.?ÿ Some have vague easements like "a 50' x 50' tract lying adjacent to SH29 being 1300' more or less south of the north line of the SW/4".
A few years ago the highway department stepped up their game on permitting "physical outdoor display advertisement".?ÿ They now require proper easement descriptions and a permitting process (even if the billboard is on private property) that takes into account sight distance and a multitude of other factors including the brightness of static illumination and the board itself in the case of LEDs.?ÿ Local, county and state all have explicit and various codes and ordinances concerning billboard placement.
I've never been involved with the design mechanics of the location of a proposed easement although I have located and written several from criteria provided by the appropriate permitting entity.?ÿ My biggest gripe is highway right-of-way on a 10,000 foot long non-tangent curve with a radius of 10,000 ft. .... and proper field procedure places the right-of-way 30' or more from a 50 year old right-of-way fence.?ÿ
None of them are any fun.?ÿ I'd just as soon not mess with them.
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During the boundary survey for Palm Coast (+/- 71,000 ac.), I was involved in the legal description research for those damned sign easements. They assigned me US 1 aka State Road 5. We surveyed 34 miles or so of the Right-of-Way (and found an amazing amount of State Road monuments) which a few years earlier had been the only North South Route along the East coast of Florida.
Since Florida, at the time, was a dream vacation spot for an ungodly amount of Northerners, US 1 was the route of choice. Filled with Motels that you drove to your front door, eat and a run diners, gas stations every 500 feet, and a Stuckey's every other mile the road was a continuous madhouse in the summer. Well the smart ??Crackers? figured out real quick like these foreign tonged, fluorescent white things called Northerners would buy or pay for damn near anything that even hinted it was from Florida (especially a jar of white beach sand with a pink flamingo on it). Therein was the advent of ??Genuine Florida Souvenirs*?? roadside stands some complete with alligator wrestling if the owner happened across a wayward gator he could catch without too much trouble. Along with all the aggressive entrepreneurs trying to put each other out of business came advertising. And being the cheapskates they were the cheapest and most effective means of advertising was Billboards. We old farts remember billboard advertising very well especially if fireworks were involved while on a ??road trip? family vacation. FIREWORKS!!!!!!! AT SOUTH OF THE BOARDER ONLY 914 MORE MILES!!!! --- two hours later ---- FIREWORKS!!!!!!! AT SOUTH OF THE BOARDER ONLY 899 MORE MILES!!!!?ÿ FREE MATCHES AND PUNK WITH EVERY PURCHASE!!!!!! etc. ad nauseam. (old man threatening to throw yer ass out of the car if you mention "fireworks" one more time)
Anyway there must have been 500 sign easements long that stretch of US 1. The majority were well written and easy, but some were doosies. Mostly wrong calls to quarter lines and corners. I still hate ??em and the billboards on them.
*made in Japan
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@flga
Back in 1958 or so we spent a few days with my father's cousin in Homestead. Fishing off Key Largo on a very nice boat docked next to a hollowed out PT boat that apparently was used for transporting various "things" 90 miles or so south.
On a road in the Everglades, we came across a roadside stand with a big barrel labeled Rattlers and Moccasins. Well, of course we stopped. In the barrel was a pair of moccasins for the feet and two baby rattles.?ÿ
?ÿ This is what travelers used to find along I-70.?ÿ For many miles they had been reading signs touting the world's largest prairie dog.
This one is out of business, I think, but there's another one similar to it somewhere in South Dakota.?ÿ This place had a wood and wire mesh cage maybe 10'x15'by4' high that held a mess of rattlesnakes,
Awesome pic! I'm sure my wife, from Grinnell, must have seen it many times.
Interesting. I never considered a brightness factor. I guess that would involve some surveying at night. Fun!
Next time you are out that way you need to take a little trip to Russell Springs.?ÿ Pack a lunch and supplies first.?ÿ That is west and then south of Oakley roughly 30 miles.?ÿ Up until about 40 or 50 years ago Russell Springs was the county seat as it is near the center of the county.?ÿ As the vast majority of the county population is in or near Oakley, they?ÿ changed over to Oakley and abandoned the former courthouse.?ÿ A local historical society has turned it into a rather interesting museum.?ÿ Anyone who would like to go to "The Absolute Dead Center of the Middle of Nowhere" needs to put this on their bucket list.?ÿ I had to applaud the locals for working so hard to maintain a nice facility.?ÿ I doubt that you will find any billboards anywhere nearby.
Georgia has a permit system like most states and a really clean mapping system with ArcGIS for all of the billboard permits in the state.
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https://gis.synodas.com/viewers/gdot/public/
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Typically, there is little to no documentation worth reviewing by a surveyor. There are site distance easements enforce and it popped up on a survey for a new Taco Bell location about 3 years ago. Held up permitting and construction for about a year.?ÿ
