Last week, I looked at one of the more unusual situations I've seen to date in a seemingly ordinary Austin neighborhood full of improved lots selling for prices between $450k and maybe $1.5mil. The lot in question was laid out in a subdivision platted in 1892.
My clients had bought their lot in 1947 and were familiar with quite a bit of its history. What they were apparently unaware of, however, was that a mistake made by the City Engineer's surveying staff back in the 1930's had resulted in the 30 ft. street pavement in front of their lot being constructed in about 1953 in a skewed position within the dedicated 60 ft. right-of-way. In the vicinity of my clients's lot, the pavement centerline was shifted about 6.5 ft. North of the centerline of the dedicated right-of-way, running for a couple of blocks on a skew to finally rejoin the centerline of the actual right-of-way.
The City Engineer's records actually show how this mistake evolved after 1935, but once the pavement was in place, very few later surveyors seem to have found any of the original lot corner markers about 6.5 ft. South of where the pavement as constructed would direct the search. So, as a result, there is this Starwars Cantina of modern (post-1947) rebar markers along the supposed right-of-way as deduced from the street pavement in ignorance of other facts, and there is the larger pattern of the original lot corners that extends across at least a few blocks.
The original corner stakes of the lots were generally marked with a mixture of very old iron pipes and what have been described as "axles", but which may be street car track bolts or some other item of iron mongery. One of the best surveyors in practice in Austin in the early 1950's, Marlton O. Metcalfe (second only to his father, O.E.), had made a survey in 1952 and had found most of the lot corners marked by these old iron stakes at the time. His plan was on file in the City Engineer's records, but when it came time to lay street pavement a year later, they constructed the street to the line that City staff had marked in the late 1930's, evidently in ignorance of where all the lots were actually marked on the ground.
Fast forward about sixty years and the generally low standards to which residential lot surveys have been performed in the last twenty years have resulted in three or more stakes at some corners, while all the time the original boundary monuments remain in place, rusty but otherwise perfect.
My clients who bought their lot in 1947 told me that they had never seen the original corner stakes of their lot. So it was nothing short of magic to have a surveyor find and uncover them sixty-six years later. In this particular subdivision, the same situation probably continues for several blocks north of their lot. That'll get the blood pumping.
"Streets Of Austin" ? Isn't There A Song ?
Country of course, just not popping into my head this morning.
There is a country song just about anything that man can mess up.
Not thinking about Streets of Laredo.
Paul in PA
"My clients who bought their lot in 1947 told me that they had never seen the original corner stakes of their lot. So it was nothing short of magic to have a surveyor find and uncover them sixty-six years later."
So, did the clients keep this old iron in their garage after your conversation, or did you take it home to your own private museum to help reminisce the days before bending lines to junior corners and mapping people out of title?
Duane- i think you forgot to insert a 😉
"Streets Of Austin" ? Isn't There A Song ?
i'm guessing that you're thinking about "Alleys of Austin" by Michael Murphy
i've worked for companies where it was a common practice to assume that the street was centered in the right-of-way and front corners were pulled in from the back of curbs. complete HORSE HOCKEY.
at least in the case that you describe, all of the pavement was w/in the r-o-w. it's a b_tch when it ain't and you have to explain it to the client.
I had a similar situation in my home town. My client called and said the lot behind him had been surveyed an overlapped on him by 3 feet. I knew what the problem was. The adjoining lot face a street that was built off center. I knew this from previous work in the area. When I survey a city lot I always check to entire block. That way you can see if there might be a problem with street centers. Don't need to just assume the street was built in the center of the right-of-way.
> So, did the clients keep this old iron in their garage after your conversation, or did you take it home to your own private museum to help reminisce the days before bending lines to junior corners and mapping people out of title?
LOL @ Duane. :>
Question
What makes some of you think linebenders would bend the line when the original monument is discoverable? 😉
One monument is worth more than a thousand words or least squares adjuustments.
69 years
That's the longest ownership I've worked with involving the same couple. They purchased two 160-acre farms in 1944 to escape "the big city". How they were able to afford this, I do not know. Nevertheless, it is now 2013 and we recently cut off the house and a few acres. They have finally realized they couldn't live on their own anymore and moved into an assisted living home. They still have the remainder lands to pass on to their four children. "Children" being a poor term to identify those from 73 down to 62.
> i've worked for companies where it was a common practice to assume that the street was centered in the right-of-way and front corners were pulled in from the back of curbs. complete HORSE HOCKEY.
That particular subdivision is an unusual case in part because of the gross failure of the City Engineer's staff to locate the street rights-of-way when they surveyed the monument lines that were later used as the centerlines of the street pavements.
Early in the 20th century, the City Engineer's staff did generally a fairly careful job of locating the streets prior to paving, but in this case stuff happened. A street called Enfield Road was surveyed by the City along the South boundary of the subdivision in 1935 and in the course of that work, the City surveyors actually appear to have tied the old axles at the block corners without realizing what they represented. Their survey left a monumented line for new street improvements along Enfield and a take of land off the South side of the 1892-vintage lots along it and subsequent widening of Enfield graded out the lot and block corners.
But the monument line in Enfield remained and the other streets running nominally parallel to it along several blocks to the North were located parallel with the monument line, creating these odd parallelogram blocks if the City Engineer's lines were used to locate the blocks instead of the old, original markers. All of that would have been harmless if so many surveyors had not made the faulty assumption that the City Engineer's lines were correct.
:-O OOps, thanks for cleaning that up B-)
These little dudes are kinda cool, but now I'm tempted to overuse them :-$ :excruciating: :-S
😉 🙂
So based upon your survey, is the city going to relocate the street and improvements?
> So based upon your survey, is the city going to relocate the street and improvements?
The street in front of my clients's lot remains where it has been since 1892, where it was dedicated by the subdivision plat. It's the pavement that wasn't built centered in the street or even parallel with it. The City will just have to live with the fact that their pavement isn't centered in the right-of-way. The location of the street pavement is mainly problematic only because it distracts the quickie-dickie lot surveyors who have so far made some startling mistakes.
"Streets Of Austin" ? Isn't There A Song ?
Streets of Bakersfield by Buck Owens (the Bakersfield sound).
Did you interview the elderly widow next door?
> Did you interview the elderly widow next door?
That's the great thing about your client being ninety. There are no elderly widows next door. The young couple who bought one of the adjoining properties seem mainly interested in just actually knowing where the boundary of the lot they just bought really is and why there are so many survey markers in their front yard. I explained the stituation to them.
Kent you need to track her down in your local assisted living center.
Upside... you have identified the problem and informed the neighborhood landowners.
Downside... feeling slightly embarrassed to share a title with others whom the public view as your equal (because of the minimum qualifications of a license) .
Such is the plight of a dutiful land surveyor.
I didn't realize you had such problems in Texas. I suppose we can add streets to fences as something never built to a proper survey line. "Street line surveyors" I suppose.