Dane
To some people around the country, it would be considered excessive regulation to allow a County or City to charge whatever the heck they want to review a map prepared by a State-licensed individual to describe and map a couple of lots for sale. I'm brainwashed from living and working here all my life to believe that it's a good thing to have a public official look over the work of me and my colleagues. The amount of crap that gets through is bad enough with the review, I can imagine what it would be like with no oversight.
I think that was the impetus for the CA Subdivision Map Act to be what it is today. People were sitting across a kitchen table describing property and recording deeds that we are still dealing with. At least most of the parcels created after 1972 have a reasonable chance of being retraced. The issue I'm talking about in this thread is the blank check that a lot of jurisdictions extract from the property owner for the privilege of creating a parcel that they can sell.
Very Interesting
Richard, you are speaking from the perspective of the Torrens System, but the Peoples Republic of California is not under that jurisprudence. Therefore, you have bureaucrats elected by no one and some time not even registered land surveyors passing judgment because they a have position and a lot in life to fulfill.
Texas
Maybe we can get expedia or some airline to do an "emersion" package into the nausances of California Land Surveying...
If not, get a ticket on Southwest Airlines and come to Texas to survive the current economic situation and discover what Land Surveying is all about.
It is not bragging if it is true!
Texas... it is not just a state, it is a state of mind!
Mr. Davis
Huh? A what kind of package into the what of California Land Surveying?
Mr. Davis
About 30 years ago TSA now TSPS made a movie called “Surveying Texas Style” starring a young Robbie (Hannibal Vector), I was just interjecting that California could do something similar for those of us that are not familiar with the bureaucratic process of Land Surveying in California.
Mr. Davis
The system we have is pretty good for the most part. County Surveyors have been checking surveys for a long time, I think since about 1907. Most County Surveyors realize that Record of Survey maps benefit the public as a whole, particularly future generations so they are reasonable about the checking fees. There's only a few that are borderline unreasonable and a couple of them are outside the statute which requires a fixed fee but no one is doing anything about it.
Granted the subdivision process is getting worse. With Prop 13 I would think Cities would be doing what they can to encourage more density so they can get more property tax revenue but in the political process logical connections don't often get made. The DPW gets told by the legislative body to be self-supporting so the result is these fees.
On the other hand we have enterprise zones (tax credits) and redevelopment agencies but the Governor is trying to eliminate those.
Frankly from what I can tell, California is one of the better States as far as the quality of the surveying and information available to us so I think our system does have a positive result. If some agency is abusing the system by overcharging then that should be dealt with but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Texas
Nuance.....so easy to spell, it just can't be correct
Steve
I do not believe that they actually have a blank check.There is a name for it. It is called "ABUSE OF DISCRETION". I am appalled at what you describe and the other horror stories.
If you carry the free marketeer logic to its natural consclusion, there would be NO licensed surveyor's or engineers.
The real source of the problem is NO ONE WANTS TO PAY TAXES FOR ANYTHING. We had a lot less of these horror stories in the days before PROP 13. Now we have all theses state and local departments that have to be REVENUE NEUTRAL.
ALOT OF PEOPLE are fond of comparing Texas and California. You know Texas is the bastion and poster child for all things wonderous and conservative. We see in the comparision, that property values are much higher in Ca. wagers are higher, whereas in Texas the schools are worse, more people have no health insurance and while there land development community has pretty much strangled local control, they still have to pay by the rules.
Dane
I think that the review and filing of survey maps (Records of Survey in CA) should be financed by the public because there is not much more advantage to the property owner than there is to the general public to placing the survey of their property into the public record. We provide them a copy without all the reviews and fees but in order for the rest of the world to have access to it, we submit it to the local agency and pay a bunch of money for the privelege.
Parcel Maps and Subdivisions that divide properties for potential sale, however, result in an increased value of the property and I think the property owner should bear the reasonable cost of the processing of those kinds of maps. The key word being "reasonable". The problem with government and utility companies for that matter is that they can charge whatever they need to charge to keep their operations going. You can't go to the "other" County Surveyor if you're unhappy with the service you get. If your local electric utility company needs to raise your rates to stay in business, they get approval from the Public Utilities Commission and up the rates go. You have no alternative but to pay it or go off the grid and provide your own electricity somehow. If the local government or utility is being inefficient in spending your money, too bad.
Dane
> I think that the review and filing of survey maps (Records of Survey in CA) should be financed by the public because there is not much more advantage to the property owner than there is to the general public to placing the survey of their property into the public record. We provide them a copy without all the reviews and fees but in order for the rest of the world to have access to it, we submit it to the local agency and pay a bunch of money for the privelege.
Steve I concur. The ROS recording at the very minimum helps the residents of the block, and not just the client. At any rate they are paying us to do the actual work. Seems pretty miniscule to have the public pay for the map check fee.
Map Checking Fee Update
I wrote a letter to the City about my dispute of the map checking fees. Three weeks went by and I kept calling to follow up on it. Finally, somebody called me back today after reviewing my letter and talking to the map checker. Bottom line is they are going to reduce the bill by 8 hours resulting in a savings of over $1,600 to my client.
The City guy that called me is an engineer that's apparently in charge of contracting engineering work for the City. It turns out that the map checker is an outside consultant that charges the City $135/hr and the City tacks on the 49% overhead on top of that. He asked me how much time I thought it should have taken for a first review of my map and I said 4 hours at the most. The bill was for 20 hours so they split the difference; best I could hope for I guess. I told the guy that if he has any influence over the map checker that if he doesn't understand something to call me before he spends another two days staring at it. He said he had already had that conversation with him.
Map Checking Fee Update
The San Diego County motto is "The highest motive is the public good."
It seems like that has been changed to "The highest motive is to soak the public as much as possible" in a lot of cases.
Map Checking Fee Update
I pointed out to the guy that if I was given basically a no-estimate time & materials contract and I hired some outside consultant for $135/hr and then tacked on 49% for my overhead, I would be getting some irate calls too. He agreed with that but that's not going to change their way of operating. When I brought up the part about their written policy of providing an estimate within 30 days of submittal and requesting a Replenishment of Deposit when they use up the measley $300 that's paid upon first submittal, he said he had been trying to find that on the City website and all of a sudden he had a meeting that he was late for.
The thing is if somebody signed a no-estimate T&M contract with me and I sent them a bill for $4,000 for a preliminary review of their job when they were used to paying $1000 for a complete job of a similar nature, they would fire me and probably worse. I can't fire the City and go somewhere else. It's blackmail really. If I want to record this map, my client will pay what they ask. This can't be the first time this map checker has been complained about for this City guy to just deduct 40% of his time because I squawked.
