The County Surveyor's Office recently dug up a 1928 ordinance that one of the small towns in our County passed in 1928. The City was platted in the late 1800's (without the benefit of monumentation) into a grid pattern of lots and blocks. The ordinance states that the City has contracted with the County Surveyor to establish 2 centerline monuments and that all subsequent surveying and engineering work will use those monuments. The monuments he set are still in existance and have "mostly" been held but not always. They distance between them happens to be 0.5' longer than record. Does this ordinace control???? What say you???
Antiquity of the rule/law doesn't make it invalid. Look at our constitution.
Unless it's been repealed, it's still in force.
based on what you say...theres a good chance it does.
Were any of the lots conveyed prior to the 1928 ordinance?
You need to tie to them. They don't control boundaries not laid out based on them.
19 years prior to the filing requirement in Oregon and 65 years of records should provide good research data, then along with local knowledge, "yours or those you ask", should give good guidance on what evidence to hold or reject.
jud
I was taught that there was several ways to convey title, city ordinance was not one of them. We have a similar situation here in Houston. I will locate the centerline monuments established by the city, but do not give them any dignity when re-tracing the boundaries.
As a practical matter, the monuments have generally been accepted. My basic question is whether or not a City Ordinance can require a licensed surveyor to use non-original monuments in the preformance of his/her duties.
Yes. But it is up to you how you use them unless that is dictated also. Then you put a note on the map explaining the situation.
Dave, in 1928 I don't think there was any licensed surveyors. I think that the ordnance is still valid especially since apparently, the subdivision of that community was just a paper plat and the ordnance was created by the community to provide some guidance and reference for the then current and future development, with the blessing of the owners of the land. Without that blessing the ordnance would not have had the votes to pass. There probably is some migration of ownership but the original lots controlled by the plat in conjunction with the C/L monuments have not migrated, they remain as platted with the C/L monuments controlling, as the approved ordnance intended. Kind of like working in a very old subdivision, except for the monuments that were set to settle location by ordnance are still available.
jud
Gene
> I was taught that there was several ways to convey title, city ordinance was not one of them. We have a similar situation here in Houston. I will locate the centerline monuments established by the city, but do not give them any dignity when re-tracing the boundaries.
I disagree. If a city abandons an alley or a street, no other action is needed to have conveyed the title the center of the roadway to the adjoiners.
Not in Salt Lake City...
Read Moyer v. Langton, 37 Utah 9, 106 P. 508 (Utah 1910)
1890 City Ordinance to resurvey the city and establish monuments can't trump the better evidence of the original block boundaries shown by improvements.
JBS
Gene
Obviously abandoning title is one of the ways to convey title. I believe the constitution protects you from government takings without compensation.
Interesting situation here. I guessing it would largely depend upon whether or not an effort was made in 1928 to confirm that virtually all prior deeds and actual occupation would support the establishment of the monuments at that time. Have fun finding supporting documention.
City of Houston
The City of Houston did exactly the same thing in 1868. The City Surveyor (City Engineer) located all the planimetrics and reapportioned all of the then downtown area, not only resolving those problems with the planimetrics but also resolving several other "overlaps" and "excesses". None of this area is platted, but there are copies of several original drawings extant, with distances and bearings. The City, once the area was resolved to the satisfaction of "every surveyor in the City except one", passed an ordinance mandating the use of the approximately 350 centerline markers as control for all of those areas surveyed.
That control system still exists, those markers, for the most part, are still in the ground and almost everything in the City, up until about 1951, was built using those "street centers".
To use anything but those monuments, when there are more than 6,000 historical plats and documents showing reliance upon those markers for the last one hundred and forty-three years, would be, in my opinion, folly. The system was just resurveyed about 3 years ago and now has state plane coordinates for every street centerline in the Central Business District.
There is also state law mandating the adherance to local ordinances (663.8), not to mention the chaos that would result in the local community if one would not use the street centers.
The area affected by the ordinance is not very large and there are maps that show those areas affected by the ordinance located at the City Survey Section, 611 Walker, downtown Houston.
