i know i'm on here whining about this every so often. thanks for being the vent.
comments back from plat reviewer this morning, subsequent to the COMPLETELY COMPREHENSIVE AND THE RESULT OF 18 YEARS OF STUDY TO COMPLETELY STREAMLINE AND REVOLUTIONIZE THE PROCESS FOR DEVELOPING PROPERTY LAND DEVELOPMENT CODE recently adopted by a local town, which so many other towns around here are already studying and posting signs for public meetings and discourse about possibly adopting similar measures (with their own inddividual tweaks, of course, because standardizing things is both awesome and a threat to the individual character of community way of life and should be done with extreme caution and a full exhaustion of the democratic public input process):
please show all existing utilities on site. utilities. not easements.
on a subdivision plat. submitted together with a site plan that shows 98% of existing utilities will be moved or removed. i just, i can't, i, i...
this is on top of, btw, wanting now 2-3 benchmarks per plat. never mind that requirement doesn't specify that the benchmarks be tied to any specific datum. this is also on top of, btw, requiring "heritage trees" to be shown on the plat. (for the those not familiar- our local definition of "heritage tree" is a tree over 24" caliper diameter of a specific set of hardwood species. so, by definition: OLD trees closer to death than to birth.)
i can't wait to see how completely restricted and un-developable all of this stuff is here in 10+ years...
"All visible evidence of utilities shown, no subsurface investigation has been performed."?ÿ I'm not magic and don't have X-ray vision so I CAN'T say, with any certainty, that ALL utilities are shown.
Andy
Understood, Andy, but I??m talking about a different issue: taking a surveying document and making it a de facto engineering document.
@flyin-solo I understand what you're saying about the reviewing agency requiring this BUT I still couldn't sign something like that. Reply in writing that you CAN'T certify to all utilities that you can't see. Get the client involved, explain why you can't certify to something over which you have no control. To even consider something like that I'd have to hire an SUE firm and even then I'd qualify my statement noting from whom I got the information.
I used to review subdivision and commercial drawings for a couple of our clients. I did have to explain sometimes that what they were asking for was, not only, not practical but also nearly impossible.
Andy
@andy-bruner look- i'll sufficiently reject signing such a statement or else qualify/modify it to a level of comfort.
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just the amount of energy spent these days having to explain the futility and pointlessness of basically certifying to the existence of a hershey bar on a hot plate... it's absurd.?ÿ and doesn't have the first damn thing to do with what we do.
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It appears the town you refer to is behind the curve compared to municipal regulations within some of my working area.
Most surveyors I know are very resistant to change. They do not look at new regulations as a true business person should.
A true business person will charge accordingly to accomplish the task. Most dull or old grumpy surveyors I know simply complain about
all the rules, take forever to accomplish a task and charge the same thing they did ten years ago.
I can't get over the fact it took them 18 years to figger it out.?ÿ Hell it only takes 6 years to get a USACE permit.?ÿ ?????ÿ
Showing all utilities on a plat would turn the average single sheet plat into a multi-page document. Basically you would be recording a version of the civil as-builts with the plat. Those are something I have to produce anyway, so it wouldn't be a huge additional thing here, but it would expose that task to a whole new level of anal exam.
Do they understand what they are asking for??ÿ It may be time for a face to face meeting with the powers that be to explain things.?ÿ
Developments and developers just make people angry with their greed. It's no wonder that there is an attitude problem at the local level. That is why I only work on historic boundaries, conservation efforts and sustainable infrastructure.?ÿ
I'm not saying that they have the right to object or make the process difficult, just the opposite, but everyone hates to see their neighborhood change.
The smart (read corrupt) developers will do something "nice" for the town, like buy a new $350,000 fire engine that basically guarantees their political success.
As far as utility location. That should have been done years ago in a system designed and maintained by the town. The nonsense that passes for utility location these days is just a horrible death waiting to happen. While real utility location is possible, it is very expensive and perhaps used as additional disincentive for the developer.
Sorry for your trouble.?ÿ
Historic boundaries and conservation efforts.
...The nonsense that passes for utility location these days is just a horrible death waiting to happen...
Ain't that the truth.?ÿ I don't know about other states but we have contract (spelled I-don't-give-a-hoot) minimum-wage-boneheads running around in little pickup trucks sticking flags in the ground in a willy-nilly fashion.?ÿ They are at their best inaccurate, and most of the time just plain wrong.
minimum-wage-boneheads
Makes me wonder why we just don't do it ourselves. if the minimum-wage-boneheads can do it (albeit half-a--ed) then it seems we should budget that into our services...
Years ago I worked for an engineering company and we did exactly that. We had all the latest and greatest sub-surface locators. We got in trouble with (at that time) Bell Telephone. Seems as though folks that are authorized to get into the splice cans (to connect a tone to the 'sheath' grounding on cables) have to be union. And the induction (non-connected) locators at the time weren't worth a flip. We got so much flack from the utility and pipeline companies we eventually quit it all together.
We actually got sued by a pipeline company for probing a HP gas line for depth. It sounds far-fetched, but a scratch on the outside of a pressurized vessel can eventually cause a failure. They dropped the suit, but it made the boss nervous.
I can only imagine what my insurance rates would be nowadays if I told them I was professionally locating utilities. I think it's all in the liability. 😉
Do they understand what they are asking for?
Sounds like something I would expect a bureaucrat with zero CE background to come up with.
"heritage tree" is a tree over 24" caliper diameter of a specific set of hardwood species.?ÿ so, by definition: OLD trees closer to death than to birth.)
You'd rather tie in all the acorns instead ??ÿ?ÿ :hmm: ?ÿ
In Oregon these issues are usually required to be shown on a tentative plan that is required as part of the plat application. (ORS 92.040)
Took out a "heritage" tree yesterday on my own property.?ÿ Near ground level it was about 4 feet in diameter.?ÿ The center was missing, though.?ÿ A big wind storm last Fall took off two huge branches with one landing in the county road and the other on my fairly new six-wire barbed wire fence.?ÿ Honey bees had moved in several years ago, but even they had moved on to safer surroundings.?ÿ Death was inevitable.
Took out a "heritage" tree yesterday on my own property. .
Be glad you aren't in California. You would still be doing the paperwork.
Makes me wonder why we just don't do it ourselves. if the minimum-wage-boneheads can do it (albeit half-a--ed) then it seems we should budget that into our services...
A lot of the surveying and engineering companies around here do.?ÿ Heck, a well known (and, if I may add, dashingly handsome ????) surveyor even wrote the subsurface utility section of the DC Department of Transportation Design Manual.
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Makes me wonder why we just don't do it ourselves.
It's not super hard to do, but you will be in competition with "minimum wage boneheads" while accepting professional services level liability.?ÿ ?ÿ?ÿ