> Better reply:
>
> How many lawyers in NYC think .01 of difference in measurement in a lot line makes a difference, because they then think that should affect what the owner owes in property taxes vs. his neighbor...? 😉
Manhattan Island is Flat, so ground = grid. No need for imitation projections or science projects.
How many lawyers in NYC think .01 of difference in measurement
Makes boundary surveying worthwhile, rest assured that there are no "Drive-Byes" or low-ballers out here. The going rate for a Survey is pretty high like it should be.
For now at least;-)
Ralph
Your previous point is that landowners would make incorrect measurements based on grid distances used in deed descriptions. The only times the differences are going to be a foot or more is when you are working at very high elevation and the grid is defined at a datum elevation of zero (at the lines of GSF=1.00000).
I used to work at the far edge of the grid at elevations typically around 6200' to 6600'. A distance had to be 3000' for a difference of 1' to show up. At the dimensions of a typical residential lot, there wouldn't be a difference of more than 0.05'. Either way, no landowner, unless also a surveyor is going to be able to measure well enough to notice a difference.
Descriptions should be written by surveyors, and by law in some jurisdictions, must be. Surveyors had better be competent enough to have an appropriate note placed at the end of the description if it reflects grid, and had better be competent enough to notice such a note and measure/calc accordingly if they are following a description reflecting grid.
Some of you guys are probably working with EDMs & glass that contributes more disparity from actual ground distances due to lack of proper calibration than would ever be contributed by the grid to ground factor in the area you work.
Makes me wonder if some of you guys forget how to recognize a monument, a blazed tree, and other field evidence if someone hands you a description with distances expressed in meters. Does your head start spinning if the description reflects varas?
Most of you know how to deal with chains and rods - you apply a scale factor of 66 (16.5 for rods). Do you throw a fit when someone suggests that the measurements of your retracement of a section be expressed in feet rather than or in addition to chains? Do you absolutely refuse to use any unit other than chains because the landowner will get confused?
Geez guys, wake up and sense the units. They're just numbers not too unlike any other numbers you deal with. No need to be afraid.
Gosh Jud, I was kind of picturing you as the surveyor in that little scenario. Freaking out for the landowner over such minor differences that they are utterly meaningless to any landowner.
As long as the surveyor writing the description appropriately identifies the grid and the CSF, any following surveyor should have no problem taking it into account in his survey. It's all meaningless technicalities to the landowner.
> Caltrans requires all work in grid. I see it everyday.
Every job I work on is in grid, I can't see what the problem is.
Ralph
:good:
Every job anyone works on is grid. Every job has a scale other than 1 in reality. Some just assume their grid scale is 1 and everyone is happy. But when a surveyor reports the truth that there is a scale required to flatten the globe the flat earth society loses it.
Just say NO!
Well, my California license is now 25 years old, so I don't think I qualify as newly licensed. I agree that many of the new generation are likely simply professional measurers, versus true boundary retracement surveyors, but that is not what this discussion is about. These are just units, like the meter, the rod, and the chain, all of which have been used in descriptions. It's a lack of knowledge that is driving this discussion and strawman arguments like the landowner might mess up when he measures his 3000' boundary line through the forest at 6000' altitude. If he ain't a surveyor, he's going to have much bigger problems than a grid to ground conversion.
:good:
"Grid is not a lay persons area of knowledge" We can all agree with this but the boundary also includes direction. What does the lay person know about the various different basis of bearing that are used on deeds (e.g. assumed, magnetic, "true" etc)?? For the user to retrace the boundary from the deed they need to understand the direction as well as the distances, and regrettably we know that most know little about either.
Just say NO!
> .... I agree that many of the new generation are likely simply professional measurers, versus true boundary retracement surveyors, but that is not what this discussion is about......
Well..I went off topic, happens.
http://www.californiasurveyors.org/clsaforum/showthread.php?t=4360
One poster said .. Maps usually call to the punch mark, nail, or tag set within the pipe.
Makes me wonder how that particular LS would handle a map with these notations about pipes.. 1950 subdivision
For the record, it was that CLSA topic I was thinking about when I made my first post in this thread.
I did an R/S in grid. The County Surveyor wanted ground because the lay property owner wouldn't know that my grid distance is a little short of the real distance. This is very rough, brushy terrain. I doubt the lay landowner could measure the distance within a 100 feet let alone the difference between grid and ground (not much).
I suppose I diverged from the thrust of this thread, into another topic... That of how so many people fail to even understand "field error", let alone "grid vs. ground", and like to create legal waves for the silliest of reasons. And then try to rationalize it by saying that the .01' difference in one measurement of a lot line equates to thousands of dollars in real-estate costs or taxes in areas where property values are extremely high...
For most home-owners, the bearings mean little. The important thing is how their acreage is measured, because that's how their taxes are assessed.
I actually don't know how taxes are assessed in areas like Pueblo West (Colorado), where the entire city is platted in NAD27 State Plane, vs. the adjacent areas, that are all platted with ground distances/areas.
> I suppose I diverged from the thrust of this thread, into another topic... That of how so many people fail to even understand "field error", let alone "grid vs. ground", and like to create legal waves for the silliest of reasons. And then try to rationalize it by saying that the .01' difference in one measurement of a lot line equates to thousands of dollars in real-estate costs or taxes in areas where property values are extremely high...
It sounds like a trivial matter, but you'd be surprised to what extent some people will go to prove they're right. Once when working for a company we did a Survey for a prominent developer, I won't mention his name and he doesn't need me to. It started as a regular title job and somehow it became an air-rights dispute. He spared no expense to prove he was right. He won the dispute because he intimidated the other guy by providing expert opinions. I personally thought it was all BS. His reward was a 1 inch high strip by 70 by 125. The company I worked for made a fortune revisiting this issue. Eventually he went bankrupt and bounced back. You know the rest of the story.
There's another one where a Prominent developer wound up in violation of his acquired air-rights and was forced to demolish the top five stories of his building, not sure how the Surveyors made out.
I once recanted a story (on RPLS.Com) where the boundary Surveyor prorated the block 2 1/4" and I used his information to layout a foundation. You have to remember that most buildings are built on-line here, there are no set backs ( an important fact, because all fabrication and shop drawings will be based on the title surveyor's dimensions when doing new construction). The building I was working on was going up 50 stories,and was slated to be an office tower (during the dot.com boom). The adjoiner was a luxury Condominium whose view was going to be blocked by this new Tower. What do you think happens next?....... Everybody Lawyers-up and all measurements are under scrutiny.
I lay out the foundation and during the rock excavation we seem to be into the adjoiner by about an inch, it was well below basement level and we were dealing with 80 ton bedrock so we weren't in any danger of undermining the building. Anyway make a long story short, the steel was ordered and the anchor bolts were poured to his dimensions. The building envelope was too big by a nominal amount and we wound up having to demo the columns and footings and drill and epoxy new bolts. Meanwhile there's a lawsuit ongoing for encroaching on the adjoining foundation 40 feet below street level. I'm talking less than an inch here.
I'm actually up late working on my taxes and don't have the time to continue this saga, at some point I'll finish it.
Ralph
Just say what needs to be said
My fear is what happens when the secretary for the lawyer or clerk for the title company who is preparing the deed for filing does not include your last paragraph?
I just discovered this thread...
I don't know what the big deal is. If I see a description with SPC (very rare), I am happy.
Many deeds around here are still in rods, perches, nearest foot, etc. So if another surveyor writes a legal with grid distances that are off 0.07' every 1000', I am OK with it.
Just like the old legal description, physical monuments control.
lots of response. I really have not decided if I would like grid distances in descriptions. How would you described a 5000 foot radius curve? Traditional descriptions in the area I work (houston) is surface distance. When I reviewed the description I mentioned in grid it was for a easement I had already prepared and it went to a public utility and comes back in grid. Granted the utilty works in grid and has worked in grid for a long time, now they are writing descrptions in grid whereas the surrounding deeds and row descriptions are all at surface measurements. thanks to all for comments.
The external for a 10000 ft radius curve with a delta of 20 deg is 154.266 ft.
The external for a 9999 ft radius curve with a delta of 20 deg is 154.25 ft. (1:10000)
The external for a 9995 ft radius curve with a delta of 20 deg is 154.19 ft.
So where grid distance is 0.5 ft shorter than ground in 1000'(maybe on Pikes Peak) it changes the alignment at most by 0.076 in the middle of the curve.
To put this in perspective a delta difference of 15" on the same curve causes the external to be 154.33. How often can you retrace a delta to less than 15" of record? So a 15" delta error causes the same curve error as the grid might on Pikes Peak.
Actually, even at lower elevations some state plane systems can get very distorted.
And there is also UTM that many energy companies want to use.
If GPS is used, all the distances are probably on some kind of a grid.
It could be state plane with a factor applied to simulate surface, or a low distortion projection where a grid is created that is "close" to surface but the distances are still grid distances placed on a plane.
A tempest in a tea cup.
As long as you provide the metadata there is nothing wrong with doing a description in grid. In some sense it is better because the reader knows what you did instead of just hammering the survey into some ground based system which is supposedly CF=1 but not really.
If the CF is too far from 1 for comfort then design a low distortion projection. Given the parameters another Surveyor can place the description where it is in the world and reproject it however they want.