Vicinity Maps

I thought they were useless until on my way to update a survey and needed my location map to guide me there. True story.

Location maps are generally a waste of space, but every once in a while they do come in handy.

I still use them because they are part of my regional associations guidelines.

As a substitute, I've considered transitioning to a QR code to bring the user to a Google map location.

I've always thought "If you don't know where this is, why are you looking at the plan?"

If the map shows the intersection of two or more streets, then is a vicinity map really necessary?

I asked that question at a Planning Board meeting once and one member got really angry, pounded the table and yelled a vicinity map needed to be shown. What a way to impress my client.

The last detailed, survey-quality survey of my road, performed by the government, was in 1811. There's no drawing, but there is a written description that explains the vicinity. Some of the other ideas suggested, such as a QR code, do not have the longevity suitable for a survey drawing. Of course, any database that might be used to locate the property that is the subject of the survey, such as a tax map computer index, will have a shorter life expectancy than the survey map.

They are useful for some plats, for others they are space taking and avoidable.

It's a case by case basis, I would say more useful for small jobs, a township size survey makes them kinda pointless.

The only maps that I do that require a vicinity map are ALTAs. Such maps are likely to be used by people in another part of the country with no local knowledge. In that case, I can understand the value of the vicinity map. If I was looking at a map of a block in New York City, a vicinity map would be very useful to me.

None of the other maps I make and use require vicinity maps and I rarely, if ever, have wished for one.

Thats the sign that the unlicensed and unprofessional neomaxzoom dweebie planners are stepping way beyond the bounds of their simple AICP certificate which provides no legal opinion on anything and likely has zero liability associated to it.

Just saying...😎😏

This is a very interesting topic. It has been talked about around the coffee pot many times over the years. Of course here they are still being placed on everything.

I have heard of the QR code. Well I am sure it is great but I up until last year didn’t have a app that could read one and it makes me mad when I go to a restaurant and that’s how I am supposed to read the menu. Now I see benefits to the use of them.

I have heard lat and long is all that’s needed. Well which one on which datum. As datum’s change this could be off a bit. But still a good idea maybe.

I have heard well we don’t need the period because I have to place a state plane coordinate on a corner or two anyway. I say that’s great but I have followed some that the state plane coordinate was scaled around 0,0 and well that might land you in the wrong county.

I have heard the whole road is on the plat anyway so we don’t need a vicinity map. Well again you can have the same exact road name in many different counties within the state. Even the same address up to the city. Especially in GA good grief my 1st year there was tough. But I think I went to every Peach tree dr that was available throughout the state lol.

I think if we placed the national grid coordinate if and only if people did that correctly it would be a great use and solve the datum issue to some degree.

I think it does depend and what other supporting meta data you give. Now in the PLSS areas the township range section break down gives a good way to follow. In a colonial state that doesn’t help us very much. I will be the first to admit of spending time on a lot and it not being the correct one or even in the correct subdivision back many years ago. Sometimes we didn’t receive all the information of where the survey was from office and well street names were duplicated in different areas so using the old city map books to navigate we sometimes were not correct. Others we were just dumb and not paying attention. I do believe they are needed at times and other times not needed for sure.

A QR code is interesting, however it must take you somewhere, I suppose if it drags the user to the county GIS and drops them onto the highlighted site that would be cool.

I just made a QR code for my property through the county parcel viewer using google chrome.

Easy peasy.

As far as I can tell, United States National Grid is an overlay on UTM. Since UTM can be used with whichever horizontal datum you please, my hypothesis is that USNG can too.

It is very similar for sure. It was devised after some mishaps during Hurricane Katrina. The military national guard was not using the same coords as the other rescue folks. So while communications we good the verbiage and such caused some issues. Helicopter reports X but ground rescue goes to Y. It was a fiasco honestly. No one group was on the same page. Some used latitude and longitude calls. Some mgrs. some UTM. I can remember of a couple instances some used state plane truncated. The military reads maps right and up so that through some for a loop.

Exactly one time I guided myself to an existing job using the vicinity map, more for “fun” than anything. Many more times I have wished I had that space in the corner of the map for drafting purposes.