Yes, that is the state of the situation today. Various county GIS with differing levels of information embedded. Some have excellent metadata, other, not so much. GIS can be a powerful tool, but taking this to a national level here is a difficult task.
"Once the system is in place, one parcel or group of related parcels at a time for as long as it takes."
You're gonna require some serious legislation to realize this scope and timeline.
The way I see things work is there is considerable financial sector need (MERS) for this or, it so affects the public that it compels government intervention.
I can't see anyone spending the political capital to make this happen.
Why GIS [could] prevail [as part of an improved system]
I'm not really sure what you mean by misrepresenting others views. My opinion is just that, my opinion. I read that paper and I am fairly well informed on where we are and what we would need to do to turn a GIS into a national cadastre in the USA. It is not simply a matter of a larger land mass here. The obstacles in this country are very large and real, you have 50 different states who each have their own laws regarding ownership and title to real estate. You have multiple title registration systems. The PLSS states have more consistency in their rules and laws but even they have some large differences. How do you get 50 states to agree on anything in this political climate? There has been (and continues to be) a large push in the BLM for just such a national system. The results have been less than spectacular. It is a large difference between having a GIS which has detailed land records and a national cadastre which determines property boundaries. As I said, I believe it will happen someday, however I doubt I will see it. I am all for it though. The resulting legislation will likely lead to a boon in boundary surveying. Surveyors will be needed to create the national cadastre and we will be busy for a long time.
that makes it sound as if the GIS you envision has no legal standing, which is exactly where we are today, except the land boundaries are far from accurate. If all we are talking about is seeking improved parcel data and metadata, that is certainly ongoing. we do not need to change much to see that day. Push for map filing requirements, including geo-referencing of maps. A law requiring filing of a map whenever a corner is established and also requiring geo-referencing would drastically improve the parcel database. That can be accomplished on a state by state basis and could lead to eventual quality in a national database.
Why GIS [could] prevail [as part of an improved system]
I don't think that it should be a national thing as far as boundaries go. As far as the law goes it would need to be state by state. Making national boundary law would infringe on states rights, I don't want to go there.
Utah has a good start on a statewide GIS that serves data. As Dave Karoly says about California, a lot of the data is cr*p. They've got parcel shape files built but they are not anywhere near accurate and many are not within a 100 meters of the correct position. Their shape does reflect the "record" but when you start with cr*p you just churn out more cr*p. Somebody needs to push to get what we need, there is lot of work to do but alas, there is no money.
Shawn, your second paragraph mirrors my thoughts. There is a huge difference between a GIS used for research to find the property corners and a GIS that defines the corners legally. There are many ways to improve the parcel database and metadata. I agree we should be involved and I think the best way is for surveyors to support legislation requiring filing of maps and georeferencing of every survey. As for moving to a true national cadastre which defines the legal property lines, well I know we are a long ways from there.
Why GIS [could] prevail [as part of an improved system]
"I don't think that it should be a national thing as far as boundaries go. As far as the law goes it would need to be state by state. Making national boundary law would infringe on states rights, I don't want to go there."
Not much to worry about there.
If you have ever wondered why there is no national licensure of surveyors, physicians, lawyers, engineers, psychologists, physical therapists, etc. it is because of the Tenth Amendment. All of that process of regulation is reserved to the states. I don't see any change in that coming down the road anytime soon, especially coupled with this:
"There is no principle better established, and more uniformly adhered to in this court, than that the circuit courts, in deciding on titles to real property in the different states, are bound to decide precisely as the state courts ought to do."
U.S. Supreme Court
Hinde et al v. lessee of Vattier 30 U.S. 398 (1831)
So the idea of a national cadastre, with national rules, and national administration, seems legally to be a non-starter in the foreseeable future.
And who will step forward to pay for such a thing?
Adding more than about five bucks to the cost of a property conveyance gets all of the real estate and title company lobbyists fired up in opposition.
Why GIS [could] prevail [as part of an improved system]
> If you have ever wondered why there is no national licensure of surveyors, physicians, lawyers, engineers, psychologists, physical therapists, etc. it is because of the Tenth Amendment. All of that process of regulation is reserved to the states.
True, but no amendment to the constitution has been continuously eroded from day 1 like the 10th. All you have to do is say "commerce clause" and the 10th amendment shrinks into the background.
> who will step forward to pay for such a thing?
As Hamlet said "there's the rub"; a national cadastre is a vision for an growing or emergent nation; not so much for one in stasis (at best).
Why GIS [could] prevail [as part of an improved system]
Yes, and it's certainly not differences in boundary law that would stand in the way of a national cadastre reporting system. Boundary law is basically the same across the country. Regulation by states of professions is not in the way either.
It is all about the money. Every county in most states has its own system tied to political appointees, elected officials, employment/government jobs, local/county/state/federal funds slices of pie, regional and local economic conditions..... The better GIS's out there are in areas where the economy boomed during the past 30 years or so while the technology was coming along.
My apologies Rambleon - Why GIS (post in wrong spot)
No worries GSC.
Why GIS [could] prevail [as part of an improved system]
LRDay has it fundamentally right when he posits that the future of surveying is GIS. However, GIS in its present form has no future. The GIS bus that we as surveyors failed to get on is now being driven back to the garage for a major overhaul… or more likely a complete decommissioning.
Dave K succinctly lays it out there. His first point that “GIS is not a map, it is a georeferenced database” is exactly how most GIS practitioners view the world. It’s all about geodata-focused databases. The future, though, belongs to professionals who can integrate their data specialty into the bigger world of data(bases) in general. Too much to push into this post (and too boring), but I try to explain this in the Outlook ’14 supplement to the latest issue of Professional Surveyor. In short, GIS as a standalone specialization is going the way of 1970’s word processing centers: spatial is no longer all that special. In spatial’s constrained form as GIS, it stopped being unique once positioning-aware hardware became part of every smartphone. Spatialness is just one part of the whole who/what/why/when/where information paradigm, and our focus as surveyors should be on establishing the authoritative aspect of the “where” component of modern enterprise databases.
Modeling cadastral data is certainly a challenge, as all the posts agree, but it’s only a small component of geospatial data in total (Dave K’s second pronouncement, and spot on). The subject is and has been worthy of books. Suffice to say that trying to force the cadastral data model into one of “what is the latest coordinate/monument for this property corner” misses the point entirely. The cadastre is constructed of chronological transactions (that is, incorporating the when, what and who components into the data model), and gets darned complicated.
My bottom line $0.02 is that taking Gavin Shrock’s modification of the original thread subject to one of “Why GIS [could] prevail [as part of an improved system]” and further modifying it to read “Why GIS in an updated form should prevail” should be our battle cry.
Rudy Stricklan, RLS, GISP
Why GIS [could] prevail [as part of an improved system]
Boundary law is basically the same across the country? I think you underestimate that problem. Just look at the definition of adverse possession. There are as many definitions as there are states. Hierarchy of calls differs as well. Just 2 very small examples. The largest area where differences arise is in case law. The commerce clause is indeed the mechanism they will try to use to push the nationalization through.
Why GIS [could] prevail [as part of an improved system]
The GIS bus that we as surveyors failed to get on is now being driven back to the garage for a major overhaul
It's not fair to say we didn't jump on. I bid entering deeds into the local county GIS about 25 years ago. My proposal was based on giving them "decent" locations based on extensive surveys I had at that time that were in areas of much of the county (all of it on state plane). It would have saved them a fortune in the long run but they went cheap, a guy bid to enter all the county parcels in six weeks. Well, you can guess how that turned out, it's been a huge mess. And since; I've given them piles of data for free-some of that they went out and "resurveyed" using hand helds. YICKS!!!
One thing they have learned locally is that their disclaimers failed in court and opened their eyes to just how much trouble their messes can cause. They finally removed much of the flood plain layer, which was a win for sanity. Now if I can get them to organize their parcel lines that aren't a new record of survey or subdivision tied to state plane to vanish anytime orthos or quads are brought up we might start to have a decent GIS. That isn't hard for them to do by the way
As far as a state cadastre, bring it on, just make it "right" and subservient and I'm fine, but it's not going to happen in my lifetime.
Why GIS [could] prevail [as part of an improved system]
Yeah, you can buy a lot of cr*p with the lowest bid!
Why GIS [could] prevail [as part of an improved system]
You can argue the semantics, but the fact is that you (and most other surveyors) aren't in the game, and the game has progressed so far that GIS has figured out how to survive without surveyors. It's not perfect, but it gets the job done for the most part and it will continue to improve.
Also the knowledge gap between GIS and surveyors is growing since GIS technology is advancing quickly. GIS people are going to figure out geodesy sooner or later, and high accuracy equipment is getting cheap and easy to use.
What does the surveyor hang his/her hat on? There's not much left.
> The GIS bus that we as surveyors failed to get on is now being driven back to the garage for a major overhaul
>
>
> It's not fair to say we didn't jump on. I bid entering deeds into the local county GIS about 25 years ago. My proposal was based on giving them "decent" locations based on extensive surveys I had at that time that were in areas of much of the county (all of it on state plane). It would have saved them a fortune in the long run but they went cheap, a guy bid to enter all the county parcels in six weeks. Well, you can guess how that turned out, it's been a huge mess. And since; I've given them piles of data for free-some of that they went out and "resurveyed" using hand helds. YICKS!!!
>
> One thing they have learned locally is that their disclaimers failed in court and opened their eyes to just how much trouble their messes can cause. They finally removed much of the flood plain layer, which was a win for sanity. Now if I can get them to organize their parcel lines that aren't a new record of survey or subdivision tied to state plane to vanish anytime orthos or quads are brought up we might start to have a decent GIS. That isn't hard for them to do by the way
>
> As far as a state cadastre, bring it on, just make it "right" and subservient and I'm fine, but it's not going to happen in my lifetime.
Ohio GIS Legal Mandate Ignored
Both John Francis (Retired69) and I have posted here and on the other board about county governments ignoring Ohio laws. I presented a paper, GIS/LIS in Ohio and the NCEES Model Law (PDF), outlining the Ohio legal requirement of a "authoritative GIS Cadastral layer" first in September of 2001 at Ohio GIS conference. Later in February of 2002 at the Professional Land Surveyors of Ohio (PLSO) Conference.
Ohio law mandates that a dual registered P.E., P.S. (elected county engineer) be in responsible charge of drafting the tax maps to be used for real property appraisal. Unfortunately many counties, including the one John practiced in, went very different directions.
In some the county engineer maintained tax maps while the county auditor created the GIS without reference to the tax maps. In some of these counties differences were evident by visual examination. Yet the GIS was used for property appraisal.
In other counties the county engineer abdicated legal requirements for both the creation of tax maps, GIS cadastral layer, and review of real property descriptions. This is the path John was always complaining about here. In many of these counties GIS technicians were reviewing surveys and descriptions and demanding changes that would force surveyors to violated Ohio minimum survey standards. Again the GIS is used for property appraisal even if the current surveys have been ignored. This got to the point that the Ohio Board of Registration (OBOR) was forced to issue an opinion, Board Opinion | 2012-05-24, in 2012 that both John and I mentioned in LEARNING not to care anymore [msg]146072[/msg] at the time. That opinion tried to avoid local politics and mandate review of descriptions by a licensed surveyor. Over a year later I can not say if this opinion has had the desired result.
I do know at the time several surveyors were considering reporting to OBOR that GIS technicians, their supervisors and elected officials were engaging in surveying without a license if changes were not made.
Ohio GIS Legal Mandate Ignored
I don't know, at least Ohio is trying, It's still my opinion that all parcel line info should be made invisible in the GIS when any kind of topographical features are accessed until such time as the line is certified. No doubt we've all seen property lines running through homes way out of position with fences and roads that we know are just fine, so really what's the point of showing them? It makes little sense.
Ohio GIS Legal Mandate Ignored
We have the same problem in some counties in Utah. They combined elected offices to eliminate the cost of a county surveyor. The code specifically states "all survey work" must be done by a licensed surveyor (it's possible deputize one with a license). So much for the law. I've requested a meeting with the county attorney to review the state code. We will see where it goes from there. There still isn't any money, apparently a valid reason to ignore the law. I won't make many friends pushing the issue either.
Thanks for the links: Change Ohio to Utah in the text and it about says the same thing as here in Utah.
Why GIS [could] prevail [as part of an improved system]
Actually you help prove my point. Surveyors need to know about the specific AP law in the state they are working in, in order to gather the evidence relevant to it. However, that part of AP is virtually the same in all jurisdictions. I'm not aware of any special jurisdictional differences in how to locate a fence, plantings, structures, etc. that may be over a deed line. Knowing the specifics other than that can help a surveyor pursue testimony and discuss matters with clients and adjoiners, but surveyor are not tasked with adjudicating the matter in any jurisdiction I'm aware of in the U.S..
Order of priority of conflicting deed calls is simple as well. Especially because in most states they are informative rather than controlling. Nevertheless, if it takes a surveyor more than 10 minutes to find the order in any given state, they probably shouldn't be practicing anywhere.
Differences yes. But the differences are not substantial even from PLSS to M&B states. If you want to know how to treat a fence in Texas v. Utah:-S it should take about 5 minutes on this site|-)
Great post!! I like the way you think! I would like to know what all the nay sayers were saying when they came up with the PLSS system! You want to do what? Grid off the entire continent???? Setting a monument every half mile???? Are you nuts???? I find it amazing that that everything from sprinkler heads too trees, fire hydrants, buried storm drain lines, Starbucks, Starbucks driveway... are located sub meter and sometimes to the millimeter, but we can't get a bunch of surveyors to understand that the public expects or is going to expect their property lines to be the same in the near future and if surveyors don’t lead the way some GIS professional will! My 2 cents, Jp
