If you've been doing boundary work very long at all, you have met the client who doesn't understand reality.
Today provided additional proof of the existence of such people lacking common sense.?ÿ Was looking at a recently completed survey chopping the west half of a section into three tracts.?ÿ One tract having about 30 sides including a broken chicken neck, caught my eye.?ÿ There was a large area totaling maybe 100 acres that was connected to another area of maybe 30-40 acres by the broken chicken neck.?ÿ An east to west portion of the broken chicken neck was no wider than ten feet for a stretch of a couple hundred feet before turning an approximate right angle to the south such that the strangled chicken neck was only about five feet wide for about 50 feet before opening into the?ÿ second large area.?ÿ This is rough pasture country with plenty of rock outcroppings, scrub brush and trees having thorns.?ÿ The chicken neck is the only access to get to the back large area.?ÿ Nothing larger than a four-wheeler could make that turn assuming there was no vegetation overhanging the boundary lines (which will happen).?ÿ This virtually assures that back area will not be utilized for anything worthwhile to stimulate the local economy.
A few years back we did a survey for two tracts, with the tracts being on opposite sides of an active railroad.?ÿ The only access from one tract to the other, which was vital, was by going through an RCP culvert under the railroad being 8 or 9 feet in diameter.?ÿ Technically speaking the one tract was landlocked.?ÿ The title company made no complaint by using the excuse that the use of that culvert had been verified to have been going on for decades with no complaint by the railroad.?ÿ Fencing had been installed from the standard right of way lines to each end of the culvert to allow the routine movement of livestock from one side to the other.?ÿ There was no permanent water on the landlocked tract so the animals had to return to the other side to get a drink.
As a justice of the peace, I've heard convoluted arguments about whether or not two separated parcels should?ÿ be considered one parcel or two for real estate tax purposes. The most common situation is the tax assessor wants to count them as one: one is on a lake and very small, the other is a nearby lot with a house. If they're counted as one, the house lot is considered to have lake access, and the value is much higher.
A tactic by the owners is to sell the little parcel on the lake to a family member. In reality, the house has lake access, but legally, it doesn't. The value of a little parcel that's just big enough for a dock isn't too much.
I wonder if the strangled chicken neck was created in response to local tax laws, past or present.
It's not at all rare here in Massachusetts to see suburban or rural subdivisions with "chicken necks" or "road-killed snakes." Some of these are attempts to make use of the hammerhead lot provisions in the various towns' zoning bylaws (lots that don't comply with the usual minimum road frontage requirement, but which meet other conditions instead), but with resulting lot shapes that are head-scratchingly ugly. The layout which really irks me, and which I've seen a few times, has long, wedge-shaped lots with the boundary lines between lots radiating from a single point. The lots become infinitesimally narrow toward that point. It's impossible to stand beside your property corner without trespassing.
I can think of only one local case of the radiating lots creating pie-shaped tracts.?ÿ This particular one has the radius point near the center of a pond where no one is going to find or set a survey monument.
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I love the term "road-killed snakes".
@holy-cow Here in MA, pie-wedge lots are created even on dry land! Here's an excerpt from a 1990 plan. Note the "Set I.P." It's dry land in that location, and I believe the pipe has been seen recently. The radiating lines (with some slight bends) run from about 400 to about 700 feet to the lots' road frontages.
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Silly people do silly things.?ÿ Standing at the apex with one's feet spread a little bit would have the right foot on six different tracts and the left foot on three.
What's a d.h.?
@jim-frame Drill Hole, in this case made in a stone of a stone wall. Pretty common around New England, at least when clients or surveyors have seen fit to set any monuments at all.
So, is the bar set on the line between the two d.h. points off the edge of the wall or somehow placed into the wall?
