Surveying rules spur debate in Bettendorf
"The dispute arose out of a complaint filed with the board against the city in September 2009 that stated city employees, while performing inspections before issuing building permits to homeowners, were helping the homeowners find the pins in their yards that mark the corners of the property lines."
"Alderman Scott Naumann, 2nd Ward, called the [Iowa Engineering and Land Surveying Examining Board]’s position “somewhat ridiculous,” and Alderman Greg Adamson, 4th Ward, expressed concern about forcing residents to pay the cost of having their property surveyed."
"[Bettendorf City Attorney Greg Jager] said a better way to fight the issue may be to ask the Iowa Legislature to either more clearly define “finding” in the statute or to exclude cities doing work for their own purposes, ..."
How else would you expect those inspectors to do their jobs when inspecting items that relate to property lines and if the owner benefits from that location, so be it. Anyone can search for corners. If a surveyor does the search and he locates the wrong mark, he has a liability problem few others would. Surveyors do not own corner monuments, nor are they the only ones who have the right to use them. Sounds like a complaint from a someone who cry's frequently.
jud
The city should review its personnel's list of duties.
I would think that public workers have better things to do than look for private citizens corner monuments. It seems outside of their duties to the city.
Anyone can find monuments. It takes a licensed surveyor to make the call that it is in the correct location.
"Jager said city employees were doing that to make sure that the project, such as a new deck or room addition, met city requirements for setbacks from the property lines."
Well now, that sounds like a clear violation..... Sounds just like what I do when an addition is built, or a deck proposed...
But Jager seems like a "dancer" around the subject, "Jager told council members that city employees were only “locating” the property pins according to the common definition of the term, meaning to find where they were in the ground, not according to the definition used in surveying, meaning to affix them in the ground."
Some people just aren't going to get it...including some members here..
May I refer you to this thread...
You cannot make it illegal for people to scratch around in the leaves looking for rebar and pipes.
Also, the city guy is wrong about the liability. While you can straighten up setback violations with a variance, there isn't a variance the city can issue that can take care of a fence over the property line.
The responsibility to provide clearly marked correct boundary lines rests entirely with the property owner.
When a city employee "assists" without disclosing that he has no legal authority to give an opinion as to whether a marker is correct or not, he and the city improperly mislead the owner.
Joe M, Can I assume that you read my responses to that posting?
I have read the entire thread here and the linked thread related to this discussion. I am not surprised at the opposing views on the subject that I feel are both correct. The answer I believe is the one view that is never mentioned. Anyone can detect and dig for a pin that marks the property. The substance of the accuracy of that mark is supported by the previous surveyor who marked or set the pin. The only illegality of this action would be if you wish to dispute the placement or accuracy of that mark. For that you would need a licensed surveyor to claim the mark in error. As long as both property owners who share this line do not dispute, or the inspector dispute this mark then there is no illegality in simply finding the mark even for a fee.
Here is an article I authored on this subject a couple of years ago for American Surveyor magazine. I remember the article generated one very lengthy rebuttle from a non-licensed surveyor which pretty much stated how dare I write such an article.
http://www.amerisurv.com/PDF/TheAmericanSurveyor_Penry-UnlicensedSurveying_June2009.pdf
"Jager said city employees were doing that to make sure that the project, such as a new deck or room addition, met city requirements for setbacks from the property lines."
How can this be done without making a property line determination? The moment that the inspector decides that there is either compliance or non-compliance with setbacks, based on iron pins that they found, they have entered the profession of land surveying. And having done so they should accept the liability that accompanied this.
I bet it would take only one law suit from a disgruntled homeowner that was lead astray by the inspector for the town to switch it's arguments!!!
I can see two scenarios.....the inspector goes out to the ends of the fence lines, or the 'apparent' change in improvements line, and scratches around and finds some monuments. He finds out that the new building addition is well within the (apparent)property line and says that's good. Or he sees that it is close and says that the homeowner needs a survey.
second scenario, might be that the inspector decides the property pins he finds are accurate and uses it to determine whether or not an improvement is within its setback. Maybe even making them move the improvement.
I would think the second scenario is bordering on "land surveying". That is the issue I would question.
An interesting aside:
I had a property with a tree on the property line. The tree was big and dead. There was a fence in the neighbor's property and it appeared to the naked eye that the tree was on my property based on the relationship to the fence. The city sent me a letter that I had a dead tree on my property and that I had so many days to cut it down, or they would come cut it down for me and charge me for it because it was a danger. I thought about giving them crap for determining that the tree was on my property and asking to see their signed survey plat proving it. I ended up chickening out and cutting down the tree. The primary thing it would have been a danger to was my house. I still think I should have made them show me...but I am not sure that is a battle I wanted to take on.
We survey it around here
Building permits in Norman, OK require a plot plan, prepared and signed by a licensed surveyor. I do three or four a week for "a small fee". They're great time-fillers to round out the day (and the billing).
We survey it around here>Adamsurveyor
I understand your examples but I disagree with your conclusion.
A municipality has to be fair and impartial. How could a building inspector ever justify making one person have a survey and let another slide? What is "close enough" to require a survey and how is he supposed to be able to make that decision?
Sure, common sense says that if I'm a 100' feet from the property lines, and their super GIS shows my house way away from the property lines and my addition is very small I probably will be in compliance with setbacks. However, how can you explain to my neighbor that he has to have a survey just because his house is closer to the property line.
Subjectivity in a building inspector is a very dangerous situation!!!
What requires a survey? 10'? 25'? 50'? less than 5' and how are they to know without a survey?
I deal with this on a frequent basis. One local town requires a survey for everything, including replacing an existing deck!!! It's just automatic, having an addition, deck etc = survey....
We survey it around here>Adamsurveyor
Good point foggy. Maybe I am wrong.
In my eyes, it is simply a matter of; it's too close to tell without a survey or it isn't.
We do a survey, provide a product of a plat and monuments in the ground. Why can't the inspector and the owner use those surveys and plats to find the surveyed property lines? Isn't that part of the reason we provide those products to them?
You got "Joe Surveyor's" marks in the ground, they are in the same relationship to the fence and sidewalk he showed on his plat, and the improvements are well-within the minimum standards. What's the problem? If you don't have those going for you, you need a survey to be certain.
What's close enough? The inspector makes that call. If all the monuments are in the ground, a survey plat is available, and the house was shown on the plat with ties to the property line....and you have a deck coming out 10' from the house and it is 2' inside of the setback....no problem. Or, you have one old rebar in the ground of unknown origin, you guess line parallel with the fence...etc....and you measure it to be around 5' inside the setback....perhaps too close to call.
However, I can't completely disagree with you. The best situation would be that the municipality requires a survey every time before they approve a submittal. More business for the surveyor, too.
Cruisin' for a Bruisin' is what I call this
We have all found what we thought was the proper monument only to discover it is not upon further review. It takes far more than a cursory search for what "might" be a legitimate monument. The city guys are doing survey work and need to be stopped.
We had one city of about 10,000 that provided that service until they made a major mistake and had to admit they were the ones who provided bad info to the homeowner.
Cruisin' for a Bruisin' is what I call this
If the City's want to get in the surveying business, more power to them. Do they already have a licensed surveyor working for the city? If not, I think they should hire some. Throw in the "average" pay, some medical benefits, some paid time off, and a government pension and it might start to look interesting to tag along with the local inspectors and kick up a few property corners. While we're there, we could hit a few corners with RTK and tighten up that GIS map...
Cruisin' for a Bruisin' is what I call this
I know the public gets honked off here, but I give my City credit. Nobody gets a slide. Right or wrong, if you need a building permit for outside stuff, you get a survey.
Proposed Code Language
Section A: "Buildings shall be set back 25 feet more or less from the side lot lines as best able to be discerned by the code officer at the time and any later true determination of the lot lines that results in less than the required setback will be cause for an automatic variance granted by the municipality and any resulting encroachments will result in an automatic inverse condemnation award granted by the municipality to the affected landowner and the title so acquired shall be then transferred to the encroaching landowner in order to alleviate the problem."
subsection A-1: "Oh hell, build it where you want and we'll worry about it later."
Cruisin' for a Bruisin' is what I call this
> I know the public gets honked off here, but I give my City credit. Nobody gets a slide. Right or wrong, if you need a building permit for outside stuff, you get a survey.
That's how my village runs the show. If you want to build a fence, you need to hand them a survey. If you want to build an addition, you hand them a survey. It helps to have an engineer on the village council, and not just doctors and lawyers and such.
