This thread is unbelievable. There is no way that something like that would fly around here.
I don't see how you guys in CA get any work. Thos just goes to prove just how vastly different things are across the country.
Bryan
Since he's a City employee, he doesn't make any more or less whether he stares at maps or looks out the window. When he puts an hour down on his time card with somebody's project number, though, the City makes about $200. I'm going to write a letter to the Director of Public Works and it will be interesting to see how that goes. I'm glad I didn't write it today except in my head. I want to take the high road and be diplomatic while explaining in some technical detail why the hours billed were unreasonable. I probably can't do anything about the 49% overhead charge without getting somebody on the City Council to push through a change in the policy. With the financial trouble every city seems to be in now, I'm not optimistic on that. But, if the billed hours can be reduced, the "overhead" charge will come down with it. The only chance of that happening is if they already have a stack of complaints about this map checker. Just one complaining surveyor won't probably get much sympathy.
Since City Council members are elected officials, they can sometimes be swayed by their constituents to step in to situations like this. That may be the next step if the DPW Director route doesn't work. I'm going to quit talking about that part now.
In good times, developers might gripe about the fees but it was still worth it when you were creating lots that would sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It shouldn't make any difference to a City policy but this client has no intention to sell these lots any time soon. He's just splitting it up now before it gets even more expensive to do later, and so when and if the market comes back, he won't have to wait a year or more to go through the process of creating the lots. Right now it's a training facility for horseback riding and rodeo type stuff, but he's getting up there in age and wants to be ready to bail out when the time comes that he doesn't want to or can't do the horse thing anymore.
Very Interesting
Some places around here have set fees that are reasonable for review and recording of this type of project and I assume the Planning, Engineering and Surveying Departments are supported by general funds because there's no way some of these offices could support themselves and their overhead charging those small fees.
Sacramento County has kicked around the idea of flat map review fees but then it seems unfair for a map where the only comment is to change the date to cost the same to review as one that is incomplete or contains a lot of errors. Of course, that leaves the door open to the kind of situation that is the subject of this thread where it is up to the map checker how much time he spends on a map and if he gets confused and spins his wheels, he can charge for it anyway.
RADU
Some day I'll remember to reply in a new window so I can remember what I'm replying to. The research that the map checker had to do was zero. We are required to provide copies of the deed, adjoining deeds, all maps that were utilized in the analysis and a title report as well as closure calculations. As I mentioned earlier, the parcel we're subdividing is parcel that was surveyed and shown on a recorded map in 1966 and we found all the original undisturbed monuments at all the corners so it doesn't get much easier to examine than that.
The preparation time of the map so far is about equal to what the map checker has billed for. It's taken a little longer than usual because it's the first map I've submitted to this particular fairly new City and their notes and certificates are not ones I have just sitting in my computer to be pasted on the map. Also, there are the adjoining recorded maps that overlap and gap with the subject map that I had to deal with. That's really the only thing that's causing the commotion is that the map checker thinks I should be showing two lines along the east and north lines of my map and I think I should be able to show the differences of opinion as record values and notes like I do everywhere else that I work.
Map Checking Fees _ Steven
>What he did was he took the map that created our parcel and two adjoining maps, created an ACAD drawing of his own and beat his head against the screen trying to get them to fit together.
I hope you got that in writing or had a witness to what the person said because what the checker did was not check your map, but he did his own thing. If you can get this guy to admit again what he did with a supervisior and the client there to witness his admission, it should not be that hard to get him to tell what he did , then the city *has* to take those Acad hours off of the amount that was billed to your client along with any associated overhead charges.
Maybe now you realize a little bit better why I refuse to let these guys run the show when it comes to checking my surveys.
Steve Thanks
W e have a vastly different system of examination because we use plans stored in the Lands Titles Office and we also have to produce plans to a prescribed standard we call "The Bible".
....And lodge plans electronically...
RADU
He should have sent them a bill for the training. $500/day for educational seminar attendance x # of county employee's. That should have balance things out a little.
Bryan
2 days = 16 hours
$135 (a bit light for a Bay are LS) x 16 hrs = $2160
Add $1300 for undefined overhead and we're right in the ballpark! 😀
You missed your calling Bryan. It's not too late to go to work for SM County.
Nevermind. I forgot this was a PM, not a RS. You're screwed.
That's just a good illustration of why nearly everything is more expensive in CA. Excessive govt regulation adds cost at every step of providing any good or service.
Maybe, maybe not. I just delved into the depths of the City's website and finally on Page 34 of the "Development Related Fees" section, I found this little gem:
"Upon submittal of a development application for Planning or Public Works services, the City of XX shall collect the appropriate deposit for all...reviews required pursuant to the...Public Works Fee & Deposit Schedule." (In this case $300). "Within 30 days of application submittal, City staff will provide an estimated total budget and timeline for the project. When the cost of work performed on any given application reaches 75% of the initial deposit amount, the City will send notice to the applicant requesting a Deposit Replenishment equal to at least 50% of the original deposit amount." It goes on and on but neither of those things happened.
The fee schedule does not itemize the hourly rates or the 49% overhead surcharge. Even without the hour and a half that somebody charged to the job at $54/hr., at the map checker's rate 75% of the $300 deposit would give him 67 minutes to work on the job without asking for more money.
RADU
When I get a comment something like that (usually from an lawyer), I simply Ask who is stamping and signing and taking the responsibility for the map? If it is me, then I am going to do it my way. I can't imagine dealing with map checkers like you do in Cal. That would drive me nutz!
Map Checking Fees- Paul
Sorry, I almost missed your post in the fancy post tree. I won't repeat it here but in my last post a few minutes ago in a reply to eapls I quoted the City's "Deposit Replenishment Policy". They didn't comply with their own rules from day one. I agree, this guy is going to be more than happy to tell everybody in sight what he thought he had to do to check my map and I'm hoping somebody with authority will agree with me that it was inappropriate and unnecessary.
I do understand your stance on map checkers messing with you. As I have said, personally I don't get upset with a line-type change or moving a note that can be done fairly quickly. It has to be something pretty major for me to go to battle.
If this type of thing is typical, I don't understand how the average homeowner can afford to have a survey done - nor how any surveyor could make a living in Cal unless all you were doing was huge developments. In Michigan a new plat - one that has multipal smaller lots - has to go through a state review before it is recorded. But any minor work, and land divisions do not have to have any review.
With all of the reviews, and multipal eyes on surveys in Cal, I would have to think that everything is perfect, all property fits togather and there would never be a boundary dispute!
Neil
It's never fun telling a client how much it will cost to do a lot split. In a more "reasonable" county like the one I live in, we tell clients that they should expect that selling one of the resultant lots should just about cover their costs to get it done. Most of that money goes either to some agency or to one environmental consultant or another hired to do a study of the effect on red-legged frogs, the elderberry beetle, to assess the existence of naturally ocurring asbetos, or study some other politically charged environmental impact. Seems these studies are often required whether your near frog/beetle habitat or not.
It's sad when you tell them to plan to spend the better part of $100K just to find out if they will have conditional approval to complete the project and they reply "All I wanted to do was split my property to leave it to my kids". Somehow, I don't think that the current Parcel Map process is what the originators of that process had in mind when they created it. It was supposed to be a simpler, less restrictive, and less costly process to create 4 or fewer parcels than it is to do a subdivision of a hundred parcels.
Of the total cost, the surveyor's fee is typically between 10% and 20%.
It's become such a processing PITA that a lot of surveyors I know won't do them anymore.
It's been a while since I've gone through the SMA. I don't recall, is there a section in it similar to §8766.5 of the PLSA that ties map review fees to actual costs of doing the review?
Evan - Why yes there is now that you mention it. 66451.2. I won't repeat the whole thing here but it basically says the local agency may establish reasonable fees but the fees shall not exceed the amount reasonably required by such agency to administer this division. I don't know how carefully City Counsel considered the Council's action to tack on 49% overhead to the charge-out rates. I would think they would either have to raise the charge-out rate to $200/hr and claim that that was the amount reasonably required to do the work rather than charge out $135/hr and add 49% for overhead to cover other activities of the department. Depends on what findings were made in the hearing process leading up to the Council action I suppose.
Bryan
> 2 days = 16 hours
>
> $135 (a bit light for a Bay are LS) x 16 hrs = $2160
>
> Add $1300 for undefined overhead and we're right in the ballpark! 😀
>
> You missed your calling Bryan. It's not too late to go to work for SM County.
True, they are looking for someone. Decisions, decisions...
Nope it isn't
This is just some folks run amok. This really has nothing to do with excessive regulation. There is NO regulation reguiring someone to spend a day and half or whatever it was cad calcing a map submittal.
