It is optional in Georgia. We have a pretty good law and attornery general opinion that takes away the bueracracy. http://law.ga.gov/opinion/2005-5-0
As previously mentioned, in the other Washington, boundary surveys are given a cursory review by the recorder to ensure that the image is suitable and meets statute for their purpose. There is no technical review of the data and the process takes less than a minute per sheet if your map is organized. The checklist is available to all and there should be no complaints about it not qualifying. Since I record all my work, there have been times when I've tried to record a map in the wrong county, forgot a north arrow or signature, or some other debacle and found myself thankful that these blunders were caught.
Subdivisions and boundary line adjustments are usually reviewed by the county or city department that administers them. Some of the cities that I work with sub-out this work to a consultant but in every case there is a checklist of things that they are looking for mostly to ensure that the City is complying with the approval decision, technical and language standards. I expect a correction on everything I submit and hence so do my clients; whether that is okay or not is debatable but I have grown to accept it and take the opportunity to meet or correspond with my peers. I suggest that it is a mentoring opportunity that can go both ways. Of course there can be negatives, like the length of time the process plays out, but there are also positives that can be achieved. A healthy percentage of my workload comes from the municipalities that I work in where the client referral was by the department that reviews the product. I know this is not how it is supposed to work but nevertheless it is appreciated.
Holy Cow, post: 336469, member: 50 wrote: "As being one of the beuricrats that has to check these surveys, I wish the laws were clearer of what a standard survey shows and places on the map or I wish they just took my singnature block off of the maps. Because I can not, being liscenced, "hold paramount the Safety Health and Welfare of the Public" as my Profesional Dutie without saying something about the crap I see in carrying out this mandate.
My 2 cents, Jp"That is hilarious awn sew mini levels. Speling poelease taken a brake.
I am glad to hear from Holy Cow & JP, "govt." employees, likely at county level. I once worked for a city when they had a survey dept. many yrs. ago and recall there was not much quantity but a whole lot of quality with what we did. Sounds like Holy Cow and JP are seeing some products from the private sector from those who are all about quantity and not always quality.
When a plan/plat review person sees procedure that he thinks is very questionable, comments on alternative methods,etc., is it just that, a comment ? or is there a statute that requires the survey to comply with the view of the map checker ? For example, in CA, as Jim Frame has pointed out in the past, the county surveyor must register the survey regardless of how he/she feels about the procedure or outcome of the survey, but at his option, may place a statement expressing his opinion on the map as to why he disagrees. The surveyor then is allowed to counter with his written opinion in response.
I don't see such a mechanism in in Oregon statute 209.250
Here in NC we have review of subdivision plats by both local planning officials and Review Officers at the county. It's a mess. I have had review officers refuse to file a plat because the border was 5/8" instead of the required 1/2". each county gets to pick what size plats they will accept, some only accept 18 x 24, others accept 3 different sizes. But by far the biggest problem lies with local officials review. They can take weeks to review a simple plat and months for other reviews. Getting a plat filed often involves getting reviews from the fire department, engineering, planning, gis, dot, CAMA, utility companies and who knows what other agencies. I've had plats held hostage for signatures because road signs are not set yet, or because a hydrant wasn't inspected. Basically, you are at the whim of every official in whatever area you are working on.
To be clear, most of what I see is excellent work. Styles vary, but that's OK. I am mainly looking for outright errors that most likely happened during the drafting of the plat, not in the field.
I am not a county employee in any county. I provide contractual services currently in two counties and have provided review services for some kind of payment in four other counties, as needed, for the past decade or more.
Please do not put me in the same category as the "revenooer's" that destroyed stills in the hills back in the day.
In Illinois there is no formal review process for a survey that I know of. There might be some review though depending on where the plat goes, such as the state DOT or a city that reviews subdivision plats. I've also had the county assesor's office call me when they had trouble putting something in their GIS system. I don't usually get upset with these calls and a couple times they caught some kind of minor problem with my surveys.
Holy Cow, post: 336469, member: 50 wrote: "As being one of the beuricrats that has to check these surveys, I wish the laws were clearer of what a standard survey shows and places on the map or I wish they just took my singnature block off of the maps. Because I can not, being liscenced, "hold paramount the Safety Health and Welfare of the Public" as my Profesional Dutie without saying something about the crap I see in carrying out this mandate.
My 2 cents, Jp"That is hilarious awn sew mini levels. Speling poelease taken a brake.
Sorry, I got typing in shorthand mode and forgot to go back and spellcheck. My bad!:-(
celestialpawn11, post: 336510, member: 10351 wrote: I am glad to hear from Holy Cow & JP, "govt." employees, likely at county level. I once worked for a city when they had a survey dept. many yrs. ago and recall there was not much quantity but a whole lot of quality with what we did. Sounds like Holy Cow and JP are seeing some products from the private sector from those who are all about quantity and not always quality.
When a plan/plat review person sees procedure that he thinks is very questionable, comments on alternative methods,etc., is it just that, a comment ? or is there a statute that requires the survey to comply with the view of the map checker ? For example, in CA, as Jim Frame has pointed out in the past, the county surveyor must register the survey regardless of how he/she feels about the procedure or outcome of the survey, but at his option, may place a statement expressing his opinion on the map as to why he disagrees. The surveyor then is allowed to counter with his written opinion in response.
I don't see such a mechanism in in Oregon statute 209.250
No there is no mechanism. To top it off our State Board is very slow to respond to inquiries and complaints. I never took this job to be the local revenuer, just can't let some of the crap continue and say I'm doing my job! Sorry for the poor spelling in the original post. Forgot to spell check it. Jp
I have worked in CA, OR, and currently in WA. I hated the process in CA, as I was young in my career and stupid, and didnt realize that I could use those reviewers to learn from and make my product better. In Oregon, I learned my lesson, and worked with the reviewers, instead of against them. It still sucked on occaision, but not often, and it was so worth it in the end. Now that i work in a WA county that doesnt do ANY survey review, I desperately want the review process back. If for no other reason than to make sure that I have as many of the records as possible, since no one know where ALL the records are. At least with a review, I get another PLSs thoughts on research.
Sent from my LG-D321 using Tapatalk
WA and ID each require plats to be reviewed. Plats in WA and ID involve creating new parcels of land (apparently in other states this is not the case). As such, each city and county have different mapping requirements and have a review process before being finalized. In my area all review comments I currently receive have been worthwhile. In the past I have worked in other areas where the review comments are nitpicky and over the top.
No county I work in either WA or ID have a review process for a record of survey, which is a map that looks like a plat but is basically done to 'record' your survey and make the public and other PLS aware of the the pins you set and 'hopefully' some insight as to how you set them where you set them.
That being said, i really do wish there was a review process for the records of survey. Why is that? I am on both sides of the fence as I review plats for several agencies and some of the crap i see coming through in plat work is atrocious (misclosures galore, illegible, etc....) and I can only imagine thats what comes across in their records of survey too....minus the review part
Colorado has a survey deposit law. Surveys are accepted for deposit by the designee at the County level and indexed for retrieval. They are not reviewed. Having said that, I work at the City and County of Denver and we do review all surveys related to development. We are not looking for margins or text size and we do not impose any preferred style of presentation. We are charged, by municipal code, with ensuring that surveys conform to our records. These records go back 150 years and for the first 100 most surveys in Denver were done by City crews. The records are extensive and quite accurate. If a survey comes in and does not conform to these records we will point the surveyor in the right direction or discover that a modification is needed in our records. Our review staff includes 8 professionally licensed surveyors, most of whom have worked in the private sector and have been recipients of "comments". We are respectful of our fellow land surveyors and for the most part, I believe, appreciated by them. Though I could be mistaken on that last point.
Wow what incredible input from you guys !!!
In CA, we record records of survey (boundary surveys mostly), and various subdivision maps. The review process can get pretty onerous for subdivision maps as the local jurisdiction has more latitude for imposing their own requirements. With RSs, the requirements are by statute and aside from minor differences in the recording statement, the local jurisdiction really has no power to impose additional requirements.
Even so, the review experience can be very different from one county to another, or even from one map checker to another map checker at the same county. Some comment on very minor things, sometimes attempting to impose their own style. Some look at the reasoning for boundary decisions evident on the map and may comment or pose questions based on that. I've received comments that seem silly, and have seen some that are beyond ridiculous. If dealing with map checkers for whom such comments are SOP, the view that being subjected to a review by such a knucklehead is demeaning of our professional stature is quite understandable.
When I've responded politely to what I thought were silly or nit-picky comments, I've had no further problems - but maybe I've been lucky. In most instances, I appreciate a thorough review by competent map checker. This was especially true when I was in my own practice, with no other surveyor in the office to put fresh eyes on my map. It seems to happen a lot that I place enough notes and notations that the map practically explains itself to the least detail, except that I forgot to dimension one small line, or didn't catch some typo, even though I looked the thing over a dozen times before turning it in.
Sometimes the comments suggest that some info shown could use an explanatory note for clarification, or the checker may be aware of some unrecorded survey info that I may want to consider before finalizing my map. In my experience, about 70% of the comments I've received have helped me to create a better map (or saved me from filing one with some small error or omission), and the other 30% can be addressed politely with a brief explanation that after considering their comment, I've declined to make the change suggested because [and include a short reason]. Much of the time, the map checker will be fine with you not making a change pursuant to a comment as long as they feel that you've given their comment due consideration. That consideration may have been an instant "No f'n way!", but they don't need to know that.
Also, like Jim Frame said, there are a lot of surveyors who would consistently produce worse than useless maps if there was no review process at all. Among professionals, you would hope that wasn't true, but among surveyors here and in every region I've worked in, some surveyors are professionals and others merely have a license that allows them to claim to be professional.
No matter how carefully we try to avoid typo type errors they will leap into view for anyone else.
Despite doing a spelling check earlier today, I somehow used the term "thenc" in one call. Now is that wired or watt?
The attorney was nice enough to suggest I might want to change that.....in between his chuckles and saying "thenk, thenk what?"
The County Clerk wanted to be able to reproduce the document you wanted to place in the public record? What was she thinking?!
All the recorded and deposited plats are scanned and placed on the web, of course you have to buy a subscription
imaudigger, post: 336476, member: 7286 wrote: The County Clerk wanted to be able to reproduce the document you wanted to place in the public record? What was she thinking?!
All the recorded and deposited plats are scanned and placed on the web, of course you have to buy a subscription
imaudigger, post: 336476, member: 7286 wrote: The County Clerk wanted to be able to reproduce the document you wanted to place in the public record? What was she thinking?!]
imaudigger, post: 336476, member: 7286 wrote: The County Clerk wanted to be able to reproduce the document you wanted to place in the public record? What was she thinking?!
All the recorded and deposited plats are scanned and placed on the web, of course you have to buy a subscription
billvhill, post: 336605, member: 8398 wrote: All the recorded and deposited plats are scanned and placed on the web, of course you have to buy a subscription
That's a pretty good service having them available on-line.
I don't agree with the subscription. Depending on the cost, I would contact the department and request a summary of how many man hours they spend maintaining the system, then request that they reduce the subscription cost to match.
It always bugs me when people produce maps which rely on shading/colors and never check to see that it will reproduce correctly.
I take a copy of a copy and if it doesn't show up clear, it gets changed.
Massachusetts has a requirement that the creation of any new lots requires a review by the local planning board. Either it is "Approval Not Required" or it's a "Subdivision" that requires approval.
Some towns do have rather stringent requirements for plan submission, including some pretty stupid ones such as this: I submitted a Subdivision plan and got a note back that a Legend was required. I called the town planner and asked what they would want in a legend since there wasn't anything that wasn't labeled and a legend wasn't necessary. I was told that I would have to request a waiver from the requirement that a legend be shown on the plan. What?