jim's condo alta thread got me to thinking.
national retailer of camouflage-lifestyle oriented products opened up here about 10 or 12 years ago. they did the usual, which is to say they plied several local communities for incentives to build and picked the suburb that gave away the most farm for the privilege- which in this case happened to be on the order of 80 years of tax abatements.
anyways, as a condition they had to employ so many locals and- here's where I come in- dedicate a minimum of 25% of their floor space for "public education". keep in mind we're talking about a store. a store that has lots of dead animals in it, but still a store.
so it became a condo regime. one unit was retail, one was education. and the units had to be contiguous. now many of you have likely been inside one of these stores, and understand that the dead animals don't all hang out together- or even on the same floor. I had to figure out how to make them all contiguous.
did the standard taping of interior walls, measuring the animals' various bedrooms, etc, then we shot all the tiled walkways and staircases that traversed between the ladies camouflage bloomer department and the candy aisles and the fishin rods and you get the idea.
oh- there were to be no common areas, and the education area could not contain more than 50% of the walkways. spent about a month scratching my head every day trying to squeeze out a square foot or three from a closet or a bathroom just to get up to 24.51%, as I'd at least convinced those with say-so to capitulate that far. I was done- couldn't make it happen. stuck at like 24.46%, there was no more land I could steal.
drove down there one afternoon just to look at it one more time. found myself at some point standing in front of the elevator. there it was. i needed maybe 12 square feet or something. taped the inside of the elevator, halved the area, added the opening: 16 square feet.
the documents were the single most ridiculous thing I've ever generated. about 9 zillion calls each, and the sketches looked like an earthworm orgy. I'll have to look them up on line when I get to the office tomorrow.
Best part of the whole thing: economy crapped out in '08, they laid off a bunch of people, went under their minimum, and lost their tax abatements.
5' x 5' around a water meter that was nearly a half mile from the rest of the lady's land. The rural water district serving her insisted that she own the land where the water meter was situated. Her (very recent) ex-husband was the owner of all the land between the water meter and the part of the total property they had (very recently) owned together that had become her chunk of Heaven in the divorce agreement.
Measured between the porta-pottys and the food booths at the St. Charles Borromeo Fall Festival. Some silly code specified it had be over 150', I think. They would up scooting the closest one a few feet back.
You really need to call in professionals when there is such dire consequences weighing over a populous....
The one I didn't get paid for!
Well. actually there were two of them over the last 31 years of being "solo," but one of them was "dumber" than the other.
Loyal
I guess the best that comes to mind is the local municipality wanted to build a bicycle trail. So we did topo on the proposed trail site, about 4 miles worth, from a local university to a local park, all down the west side of the road. It was, after all, the side they requested, and the side that both the university campus and the park were on. 5 months later when they start building the concrete trail, the whole thing gets built on the east side of the road.
Did a topo for a 20'x20' square on a leveled, and rocked well pad. The topo was for a new engineer that was "designing" the location for a portable storage building that was 10'x10' in size.
Surveys to prevent owners of property to use what is rightfully theirs that State Law clearly allows them to use like original access roads, water sources and minimum distances of separation because of some zealous group or person attempt to take advantage.
I shut up and eagerly take their money and have an inside laugh when they lose their case. :imp:
Volume survey on a manufactured 30' tall steel oil storage tank. The owner insisted that we measure around the bottom, middle and top, he was convinced that the tank wasn't round, it was.
Not my survey but a previous employer tells of a new party chief sent out to measure the volume of a pond. After a full days work, he proved that the water in the pond was indeed level.
About 30 years ago the company I worked for was hired by to do a last minute ALTA for a long term client. He provided the address and we dropped everything to do the survey, prepare the ALTA, and make his closing. We sent both crews and set up a drafting team (pre-CAD days) to work through the night. We arrived at the address and it was a fully developed commercial trucking site with lots of buildings, docks, utilities, etc... We frantically went to work, then shuttled data to the office for downloads so the drafting folks could keep working. We proudly finished a couple of days ahead of schedule and called the client in to pick up the finished product. As soon as he looked at it, he asked "what is this? The lot is vacant." Turns out he transposed the numbers on the address he provided. Didn't take us long to do an ALTA on his vacant lot and still make the deadline. He paid the bill for both.
Wasn't my survey, but a friends. There is a "churchy" person who had a big wooden cross overlooking a highway. He then decided to upsize, put in a giant metal one. It was about 4' around, 100' high. He wanted the land on subdivided from his property. This they did for him. But, the parcel had to be in the shape of a cross.
Edited to change the height. Its 100' high, not 50'
TXSurveyor, post: 384580, member: 6719 wrote: Did a topo for a 20'x20' square on a leveled, and rocked well pad. The topo was for a new engineer that was "designing" the location for a portable storage building that was 10'x10' in size.
I did a planetable topo once for a 20' X 20' rest room pad at a park. And I had to put four stakes in for test borings. And tie it all in to control.
How about landfills. In the 90's we started having to provide topo's of the capping of landfills (dumps). It seems it was layers of redundant topo; subgrade, top of rubber mat, top of 1' clay, top of another rubber mat.... I always thought it was amazing that dumps went from back canyon dump and burn pits to a multi billion dollar operations. The engineered cap was a good idea but the overkill in bureaucratic specifications was over the top but it paid the bills. Jp
9 miles of brushing and cross sections every 100' along an existing highway.
Then when it came time to rebuild the road, the contractor was allowed to eyeball grade.
This was before servo drive instruments were invented.
flyin solo, post: 384515, member: 8089 wrote: jim's condo alta thread got me to thinking.
national retailer of camouflage-lifestyle oriented products opened up here about 10 or 12 years ago. they did the usual, which is to say they plied several local communities for incentives to build and picked the suburb that gave away the most farm for the privilege- which in this case happened to be on the order of 80 years of tax abatements.
anyways, as a condition they had to employ so many locals and- here's where I come in- dedicate a minimum of 25% of their floor space for "public education". keep in mind we're talking about a store. a store that has lots of dead animals in it, but still a store.
Best part of the whole thing: economy crapped out in '08, they laid off a bunch of people, went under their minimum, and lost their tax abatements.
One of my favorite stores... I assume this was the one South of Austin? I heard from some locals when I lived in the area the person that owned the land it sits on was broke living in a shack and riding a bike.... when asked what he would do with the money since he sold the land he replied "I think I will buy a new bike."
BrandonA, post: 384659, member: 11837 wrote: One of my favorite stores... I assume this was the one South of Austin? I heard from some locals when I lived in the area the person that owned the land it sits on was broke living in a shack and riding a bike.... when asked what he would do with the money since he sold the land he replied "I think I will buy a new bike."
that'd be the one- and i waste plenty of time and money there too (snake gaiters for all the field guys was the most recent expenditure, it's usually ammo). don't remember the details about the previous owner, but i wouldn't be surprised. such a weird area- the parking lot just to the north is the supposed final resting place of that nightclub owner who disappeared. and not too far north of there is where a locally notorious matriarch shot her ball and chain over a burnt steak. she was an interesting client when we were slicing her homestead into pieces.
The owner of an old graveyard decided to sell the remaining property where there were no graves. So the calls for one side of a ten acre tract looked something like N 10'; E 20', N 20'; W 10 feet and on and on. I guess he had a change of heart, no one wanted the remainder or the municipality would not cooperate with his stupidity, as it looks about the same today. Of course, there are much stricter requirements for graveyards today.
They are so common they seem normal.
[USER=8089]@flyin solo[/USER] : Is there anyway we could see this map? I would love to look at the crazy things other municipalities require....
gschrock, post: 384677, member: 556 wrote: ...I suggested we could rig up cross of 1x2 with eyelets and strings of set length and they could swing the four arcs with chalk on the floor forming their "oval". But no; they insisted on layout with our "fancy lasers".... and they paid a lot for that. Oh well... they did have a good lunch spread and it was an air conditioned arena...
We often do work that no self respecting foreman would have paid a surveyor to do even 5 years ago. Now it is common. This is especially true when vertical is involved. It is like we work in some deep dark magic...
There was a lot brain power and experience that went elsewhere in the Great Recession.
