California LAFCo Descriptions
I am preparing a scope of work to prepare the LAFCo legal description and plat for a large annexation of hundreds of parcels. I have prepared smaller annexations and have always had a boundary survey to base my description on. For this project, I am struggling with how much, if any, fieldwork and boundary resolution is required. This is a mix of rural and suburban lots with most of the parcels along the exterior being large parcels that may not have been surveyed since the GLO surveys or are deed only parcels.
While an actual on the ground survey of the district boundary would be fun, it also would be very expensive. What are others' experiences with large LAFCo descriptions?
No field work required. The description must adhere to SBE requirements, but no actual measurements are necessary.
What I've done with large annexation/reorganization projects is get the best imagery I can easily acquire (Google Earth in a pinch) and use that as a CAD backdrop upon which to draw the boundary. I round the bearings to the nearest minute and the distances to the nearest foot to reduce the likelihood of a future surveyor according the dimensions any weight in a boundary survey.
Most of your boundary courses are going to be qualified to existing title lines (Assessor Parcel Maps are handy for this) anyway, so the dimensions serve only to connect the endpoints, provide a rough area, and meet one of the SBE requirements.
P.S. I just looked, the last big one I did was in 2012, about 126,000 acres.
P.P.S. I have an on-call contract with my local LAFCo and check most (all?) of their maps for SBE compliance, except for the ones I prepare.
Thanks. This is what I was looking for and hoping for. What you're describing was my initial plan, draw a boundary as best I can in CAD and the qualify everything. I wasn't sure about the accuracy though, other large annexations I've been looking at are to the nearest second and hundredth, which to me seemed pretty unrealistic without a full boundary survey.
