One year ago I platted a small 15 lot subdivision. It was in an unincorporated part of the county. In Florida, We have ours plats checked and signed by a surveyor representing that municipality in which it is platted. I set the prm's and pcp's and the county surveyor came out and checked these monuments. All was approved and the plat signed by myself, the county surveyor, the developer and all county dignitaries.
Now, 1 year later and the developer receives a letter from the county regarding the site improvements (retention, piping, etc.). It also has comments from the county surveyor. He can't find the prm's and one of the pcp's has been destroyed by the construction of the homes within the plat. He wants the developer to re-flag the prm's and reset the pcp.
I haven't called him yet, but the plat was approved as having all monuments in place and visually inspected before recording.
Does this make sense? What are we supposed to review every plat and recheck the prm's and pcp's every year? Does the developer have to pay for something on a yearly basis because the municipality says so?
Any thoughts?
Asking for the moon and stars is easy. Getting them is another matter entirely. I'd tell them to go pound sand if I were the developer. Then I would go over their heads to my good friends the County Commissioners or whatever the appropriate label may be in your neighborhood.
BTW, what the heck are prm's and pcp's. Not common lingo around here.
Was the developer still working on the site after you had them inspected and approved? Did he knock them out?
If so, I suppose the Developer would need to hire someone to reset the monuments, probably he will try to get you to do it for peanuts.
Holy Cow, post: 374707, member: 50 wrote: BTW, what the heck are prm's and pcp's. Not common lingo around here.
Glad I'm not the only one.
I'm gonna guess "primary reference monuments" & "primary control points"....but just a guesss....
Why would the developer be obligated to reset monuments after everything has been approved? If that were the case, we would be kept busy forever. But, who would we be working for? Once the developer has sold all the lots, he definitely should have no more responsibility.
Is there a performance bond in place? If so is the developer trying to get it released and the agency noticed that some things are missing or didn't meet standard? Not uncommon here.
Holy Cow, post: 374707, member: 50 wrote: Asking for the moon and stars is easy. Getting them is another matter entirely. I'd tell them to go pound sand if I were the developer. Then I would go over their heads to my good friends the County Commissioners or whatever the appropriate label may be in your neighborhood.
BTW, what the heck are prm's and pcp's. Not common lingo around here.
Premenant reference monument PRM
Premenant control point. PCP
Second-Generation, post: 374726, member: 1477 wrote: Premenant reference monument PRM
Premenant control point. PCP
Oh this should be good!
preåáemåáiåánent
prÒèöemªnªnt/
adjective
- surpassing all others; very distinguished in some way.
"the world's preeminent expert on control points and reference marks":angel:
In most jurisdictions monuments are bonded. It is reasonable for someone to check that permanent monuments are in place after construction. Your name is on the plat and most people will blame you not the developer that they are not there. Why are you acting surprised? either that the county wants the monuments or the developer may not pay you?
Paul in PA
I think his concern is that they WERE there and the county surveyor already checked them and signed off that they were all in place. Now after construction of houses a few have been destroyed and it shouldn't be his duty to replace them for free just bc some contractor is careless with his tractor.
That's what you need when you "preform" a survey..............................
It's his first post. Let's give him a liiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttlllllllllllllllllleeeeeeee slack.
Holy Cow, post: 374735, member: 50 wrote: That's what you need when you "preform" a survey..............................
It's his first post. Let's give him a liiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttlllllllllllllllllleeeeeeee slack.
yeah- but 5 year member....... 😉
Happens here also, the developer has the plat surveyed, the city engineer walks the site and sees the monumentation, approves recording the plat.
The developer then proceeds to build the subdivision in the process removing many if not most of the monuments.
City says,,,,,,,,,,heyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!
MightyMoe, post: 374742, member: 700 wrote: Happens here also, the developer has the plat surveyed, the city engineer walks the site and sees the monumentation, approves recording the plat.
The developer then proceeds to build the subdivision in the process removing many if not most of the monuments.
City says,,,,,,,,,,heyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!
It seems like at that point the responsibility should fall on whoever destroyed them.
Around here there is no 'checking of the pins" by the county surveyor or city engineer or any other municipality. The fact that you signed and sealed the plat stating you have set the monuments is sufficient. If you stamped the plat but didn't set the pins but then you could be violating state code (there are exceptions to this, depending on jurisdiction).
Once the pins are set and the plat is file the surveyor's responsibility is complete. If the contractor rips thems out it is his responsibility, according to the tate code, to replace them.
I imagine it would depend upon what common practice in that area is (there's that "it depends" line again). But, I would say that if the plat was approved and part of that approval was verification that monuments (PRMs whatever) were present and accounted for, then if they have subsequently been removed/damaged/destroyed, it is NOT the responsibility of the initial surveyor to replace them. But that surveyor can be hired to do so.
It reminds me of a parcel map that I worked on in a city along the coast of California. The parcel map was approved and recorded. On the face of the map it indicated that the monuments for the parcels shown would be set within 90 days of completion of improvements on the site. The improvements took almost a year from recording of the map, but we got the monuments in and everything was done.
Almost three years later, the City contacted us saying that they couldn't find the monuments and that we needed to come out and dig them up and mark them with lath and flagging. I said that we would do that, for a price. The City insisted that they didn't have to pay and I told them that I didn't have to dig up my monuments for them. They had a shovel (I've seen their public works people leaning on them, but I didn't say that part).
THEN, the City Surveyor was saying that we had to reset the reference monuments that were shown on our map because some of them had been taken out by subsequent construction. And that we'd have to do the corner records on them as well.
???
I asked how we were responsible for filing corner records and resetting monuments that had nothing to do with our work. The City Surveyor said that since the monuments were shown on our survey as "in at the time of recording" but that some other construction work (unrelated to the project that we were associated with, and was already completed) had knocked them out, we had a responsibility to replace them.
I don't know where these public servants get these ideas...
Bottom line, if the original monuments were approved as per the recorded and completed plat, then I don't think there is any requirement to maintain them in any way, especially not to reset them.
skwyd, post: 374772, member: 6874 wrote:
I asked how we were responsible for filing corner records and resetting monuments that had nothing to do with our work. The City Surveyor said that since the monuments were shown on our survey as "in at the time of recording" but that some other construction work (unrelated to the project that we were associated with, and was already completed) had knocked them out, we had a responsibility to replace them.I don't know where these public servants get these ideas...
Bottom line, if the original monuments were approved as per the recorded and completed plat, then I don't think there is any requirement to maintain them in any way, especially not to reset them.
Ironically, the Land Surveyors' Act section 8771 (d) covers this:
"The governmental agency performing or permitting construction or maintenance work is responsible for ensuring that either the governmental agency or landowner performing the construction or maintenance work provides for monument perpetuation required by this section." [emphasis added]
Once the local agency signs off on the performance requirements for monumentation on the map, subsequent construction activity under permit becomes the responsibility of the permitting agency. That's why deferred monumentation is generally the last item in development.
it's amazing the swelled head a city or county surveyor gets when he reviews a private sector surveyor's plat. but, in this case, he signed and sealed the plat, visually inspected and acknowledged the permanent reference monuments and permanent reference points in place.
i appreciate the comments. i'm glad my thoughts represent what the respondents of this post think. thank you.