My area is currently under the process of a large code revision and I have had many discussions with the regulatory body about the ongoing loss of property rights of the public. One thing that is a big problem in our area is the loss of property corners due to construction by the government agencies. In the past on this forum there have been several posts and conversations about this problem and it seems like overall with the advent of GPS that Licensed Land Surveyors are taking much less of a role in construction work. I have seen a terrible mortality rate of property corners and many public projects impact private property due to this. With the liability involved in making boundary decisions based on less and less evidence I am very curious as to why Licensed Land Surveyors haven’t taken a more active role in trying to protect private property rights and corners. Please help shed some light on this and give me your thoughts on why it isn’t a good idea to pressure public agencies to require Licensed Land Surveyors be included in construction projects through contract requirements and local codes. From my experiences contractors look at what they are required to do to accomplish the project They then seek subcontractors or employees to provide those results. The price submitted for the project bid reflect those costs. For the good of the profession and the public welfare why not require this to be included?
Thanks for your time on this.
California requires public agencies to tie out and replace monuments that are endangered by road improvement projects. A licensed land surveyor is required to oversee the work.
See Section 8771 of the CA Business & Professions Code for details.
Bear Bait,
This is a problem across the country. I see it quite a bit in my part of the state. I have started bringing it to the attention of the regulatory boards, and hopefully starting the discussion to bring it to the attention of the public entities.
Good luck,
Jimmy
Call the boundary surveyors when you need to define the project location and other issues relating to their expertise. When its time to build, call the right guys for the job: the construction surveyors.
I do not think that the current situation is a problem.
Working for a utility that has disturbed it's fair share of property corners over the years, one of my primary responsibilities is to find, tie and flag corners along construction routes and replace them when called for. Do all the utilities and construction contractors around here take that approach? Heck no. Over the years it becomes more and more difficult and expensive to do surveys as corners gets annihilated The problem is particularly bad along ROW corridors. Do I fret about it? At first I did but I've come to realize that it just increases the value of my data and provides me with added job security. Selfish way to look at it maybe but I don't see things improving any time soon.
Just my take BB.
We have this problem all over AZ. As stated, most states do. A typical contract will include "replacement of all survey monumentation by an RLS". What happens is the contractor just "puts it back where it was", and there is not only zero RLS supervision but the municipality does not have the resources to check things out after the fact. It's worse on private jobs.
APLS is trying to address this issue, but it is an uphill battle. It always goes back to who does the checking after some paperized AZ RLS who passed their 8th state exam, and lives in Iowa signs off on some points he has no clue about. All so they can their final C of O.
Expedite and make money....who cares if it's right... :'(
In terms of over all staking, if a surveyors sets control and a competent contractor does the layout - no problem. Then the actual surveyor of record does the as-builts.
> Call the boundary surveyors when you need to define the project location and other issues relating to their expertise. When its time to build, call the right guys for the job: the construction surveyors.
>
> I do not think that the current situation is a problem.
:good:
Yes...let the land surveyors handle the boundary issues. The other side of the coin is there are plenty of land surveyors out there that aren't qualified to do construction surveying.
> APLS is trying to address this issue, but it is an uphill battle. It always goes back to who does the checking after some paperized AZ RLS who passed their 8th state exam, and lives in Iowa signs off on some points he has no clue about.
This will always be a problem with a tiny subset of licensees, but absent a legal requirement that monuments be preserved, the much larger problem of wholesale monument destruction makes the notion of disciplining a few ethically-challenged practitioners seem quaint.
However, enforcement is zero and compliance almost seems voluntary. Some agencies are good about it, while others are oblivious.
Things are no different in Illinois. Highway jobs, utility companies etc knock out corners all the time and they aren't replaced. The state DOT in most areas is very good about saving section corners and resetting them as part of the job but that is about it. This work has to be performed by a PLS.
Wayne,
I cringe at some of the circumstances you describe in Arizona. I spent half my career in non-recording States. I am all too familiar with a few of the issues...
It has taken a long time to see our Laws and Rules make a dent in the loss of monuments. Slowly but surely it is improving.
As for the '8th license' comment, my experience is completely different. Part of this is likely due to geography. I am surrounded by recording States with younger GLO Surveys. Our populations were pretty light when States began Legislating Corner Perpetuation so we got more benefit.
Most of my (PLS) friends have several licenses. We travel or send crews across State lines all the time. Sometimes we contact a local, sometimes not. A lot depends on the state of affairs with the County Surveyor. Either way our products are recorded and they better be correct.
On a recent trip I contacted the County Surveyor and a popular local guy. Both of them told me, 'Corner Records never caught on around here'. This is a populated County with 150 years of records. Not one Corner Record. The only person to attempt to follow code in that County was the 'out of town one and done' (that's me).
I am not the best Surveyor on the Planet, probably not the County. I am licensed in three States and I do solid work. So do the other multi-state professional I associate with.
The last State I worked in before moving to Idaho didn't seem to have a Board with teeth. I found that moving 1700 miles solved that problem. At this stage I am more likely to push for change as I have way too much crap to move. I do hope you find a solution that improves your situation...
Good Luck, Tom
I am a strong proponent of monument preservation as all surveyors should be. With that said here in Idaho there has been a lot of progress in the past few years to educate the engineers and local municipalities that there is a state code requiring a monument search by a licensed PLS on ALL engineering plans. On top of that if there are no monuments shown on the plans and monuments get destroyed, it is Engineers responsibility to replace them. Several local projects have been re-bid or significantly delayed due to this. I have personally reported a few projects that I was aware of and each project eventually received the proper preservation. Its really up to us professionals to police each other, no one else will. Until we all get on the same understanding we'll just keep complaining while staring into the mirror!
Guys in rural area, especially near state boarders it makes perfect sense. It's those "license collectors" that baffle me, AKA potentially a broker. Classic example I started staking today. A PE from MI with a large multi office firm I'm well familiar with has his AZ PE license. I thought I went back in time to 80's. All sorts of fancy lines and notes, but no dimensions. Even then the numbers were all there, but you had to look. But it's on an existing large tract privately owned and just involved some widening, small stub road, and a new guard shack. No control, no stationing, and never topo'ed.
I also hold multiple states. Since I worked in MI for 30 yrs I have that, then moved to AZ but got my license first. Start back up in business and went after NV since it's only 35 miles away to Laughlin and I still have visions of moving to Reno. However, I've had that about 5 yrs and still yet to use it (those big guys in Vegas are hungry).
For the life of me I have never understood why ANY state would not REQUIRE surveys to be recorded. The winner is the public at large, not the lowballer who uses them for the wrong reasons.
I try to avoid the "one and done" status, but have and likely will again. Like yourself, first stop is county surveyor (if they have one), or engineering, and hopefully chat with some local guys. Even before I set foot on the site. You cannot ask too many questions from anybody, and it's amazing how cooperative they are.
Regarding the issue of local public agencies not regulating monument replacement:
One reason that they don’t need to require it in their regulations is because it’s already required in Alaska Statute 34.65.040. Records of Monument.
__(b) An agency whose activities will disturb or destroy a monument or its accessories shall have a land surveyor
_____(1) record a monument record before the monument or its accessories are disturbed or destroyed;
_____(2) restore or replace the monument and its accessories after the activities have ceased; and
_____(3) record a new monument record after restoring or replacing the monument or its accessories.
On the other hand, they may want to put in their regulations for some of the reasons you describe – because they recognize that these property corners have value to the people that they represent and that the presence of monumentation reduces survey costs, reduces litigation, and expedites development and commerce.
While enforcement isn’t what it could be, all boroughs and cities should strive to be in compliance with the law and to help maintain this valuable infrastructure.
In my discussions with local authorities, I'd emphasize the value of this infrastructure - money is the reason that they don't require it - they need to understand that, although it is not obvious and immediate, there is significant cost to not maintaining cadastral infrastructure.
> However, enforcement is zero and compliance almost seems voluntary. Some agencies are good about it, while others are oblivious.
I agree that compliance is very uneven, but with a law on the books at least there's a path to follow in order to compel compliance. I've been working on my home city for at least a decade, and in that time they've gone from complete ignorance to both including the requisite language in all capital improvement project bid books *and* performing pre-construction inspection to identify monuments in danger. The institutional change has yet to filter down reliably to the construction inspectors, who sometimes still sign off on projects that haven't fully complied, so there's work to be done yet.
The approach I've used is to alert PW staff -- sometimes the director, but more often the engineering techs who actually manage the projects -- as soon as I become aware of a pending project or a monument that's been removed and not replaced. It's a nuisance, it takes time, but it's having an effect. And on a couple of occasions I've even been retained after the fact to restore monuments and file the requisite documents.
