California Surveyors Forums

What evidence do you feel a surveyor should provide to the local agency to support a decision to rely on found no tag / no reference monuments for establishing the Parcel Map boundary and the centerline of the adjacent street when the surveyor also found tagged and referenced centerline intersection monuments which are indexed in the local agencies centerline tie notes?

The no tag / no reference monuments when used to establish the adjacent street centerline and sideline cause the tagged/referenced centerline intersection monuments to be off by approximately 10 feet.

I would appreciate your opinions.

So, without a tag in the pipe, how do you know that it is a monument?

I retraced a boundary that had been established in the mid 1920's where in all the pipes along the northerly boundary were of a distinct, heavy walled pipe. One of the pipes that had been accepted as an original was, in reality, quite different in character and about 3' off line. Unfortunately, a colleague had jumped on this odd-ball as an original, tagged it and used it to define an interior boundary. Oooops!

Some times, to paraphrase Herr Freud, a pipe is just a pipe!

Ian

Whatever evidence you have that causes you to put your faith on the no tag/no reference monuments as opposed to the tagged record monuments.

I assume you are checking a map and wondering why the surveyor accepted the mystery iron and rejected the record mons.

That surveyor must have sufficient evidence to do so (one would hope) in the form of an unrecorded survey, field notes, ... something. Ask him to provide that evidence.

I can't wait to see the replies on this thread.

A simple example I’ve experienced recently happened when I came across a called for “2” IP with plug” but the plug was missing. After some analysis I was convinced that this was the same 2” IP called for by the previous survey.

Another example I’ve encountered is the no tag/no record monument that happens to fall (within your error ellipse) on your boundary corner solution. Why not accept this monument as the property corner?

Dennis, from your description, it sounds like there is no recoverable original monument. If this is the case, then the next question is where is the location of the original monument? Do the no tag/ no reference monuments fit the original location?

Happy Hunting,
Ben

Hey, Ben. Do I have to honor the 60D spike I found Half a foot from my calculated position for the corner? The map called for a 1"IP tagged XXX#####.

Hee hee...GRANADE!

Ian

Ben,

In your example, you found a monument of the same charater as that called in the record, except it was missing it's called for plug. That can happen quite often, especially if it's a plastic plug. In any case, it's fairly obvious that you have the called for mon.

In the case Dennis describes, we are not told what originally, if anything occupied the positions these irons occupy. We are told that using them does not fit other monumentation of record.

Given that info alone, the use of those irons is rather dubious. It might be that they actually are the best evidence of the original location of the road, but the surveyor needs to present supporting info for that decision.



Ian,

Monument, schmonument! If there's a fence by it, any fence at all, you would need to accept it if were even a thumb tack! That's enough to divine intent of the original parties! (according to some) ;-)

My plan checker has already asked (on a number of occasions) for the evidence to support the surveyors boundary establishment via use of the no tag/no ref monuments over the tagged/ref centerline monuments, but the evidence has not yet been submitted and there appears to be some resistance, at least from the subdivider/owner who is handling all the agency processing. We may need to go around the subdivider and call the surveyor directly. At the end of the day, I will be the LS signing the County Engineer/Surveyor SMA statement on the Parcel Map.

If I were the LS on the other side of the counter, I would think that I would be more than willing to share the evidence used to support my professional judgment. Just curious if my opinion was consistent with others...

monument and hold it to be something, usually its' horizontal position "fits" other monuments of record. Usually it fits within hundreths, maybe even a few tenths. It may even "fit" other unrecorded monuments, but it should fit against something that I can "feel good about" and I am able to show or state on a map why I held it. It may take some time but it really isn't that hard to do, unless of course there is absolutely nothing around. Sometimes (maybe) even improvements will help in determining the value of a no ref, no tag monument.

Dennis,

The way I read your original paragraph tells me that the submitting Land Surveyor has arrived at the opinion that the tagged and referenced centerline monuments were established in error and that the untagged / unreferenced monuments more closely represent the boundary or right-of-way lines.

I believe there exists two distinctly different questions that the submitting Land Surveyor asked him/her self (or should have):

1. What evidence have I uncovered that makes me believe the tagged and referenced centerline monuments are in error, or should not be held as control for this survey?

2. What evidence have I uncovered that makes me believe the untagged and unreferenced monuments control the boundary / right-of-way for this survey?

These are questions that are simply fundamental each and every time a boundary is retraced or established. And should be relatively easy to communicate to a reviewing agency.

Providing the rational behind your decision(s) should not be viewed or dictated as "the agency telling me how to do my survey", rather as a means to clearly and competently communicate your position in a professional manner. Personally, I find it much easier to discuss my findings and opinion with my peers than I would to attorneys and a court of law. If you can't competently discuss the subject at this level, you can bet it won't become any easier later on.

One of the primary reasons that I have always been known to describe working with Exam Development as the "best continuing education" around. Plenty of opportunity to discuss your opinion and findings with your peers.

Ric

This is a classic case of figuring out if the monument is a monument and if it is the legal corner of the boundary. I have made a point of learning from those who have been around longer than me. I've spoken with surveyors who have been surveying for over 40 years in one community.

A typical situation is Santa Barbara County is that many lots in "ancient" subdivisions where surveyed by the surveyor and no record of survey filed. This is true of RE7704. Grant and Sons did a tone of work in SB County. Many were final maps, and then they went in later and set monuments, even though the map does not indicate that. As recently as 1990 this was the case in SB County for most of the surveyors here. Not good, but just the facts. Should the retracing surveyor simply throw out thousands, maybe 10's of thousands of monuments due to the fact that it was unrecorded? NO!

There are ancient maps in SB Co that show no monuments set and barley any information. I found two versions of the final map at the County Surveyor's Office one time! Gaps, overlaps, and many, many axles, RR spikes and 3/4" open pipes. If you can't accept un-tagged, un-recorded pipes- don't survey here please!

However, I make a practice of making a site visit to all of my boundary surveys to look at the character of the monuments the crew is finding. I might accept an untagged, unrecorded monument in the following circumstances:

1. Some ancient tract maps were subsequently surveyed by licensed surveyors (“First Surveyorâ€￾ at a time when they did not record their survey and others have accepted them because they are aware of the survey by parole evidence from the surveyor himself or a reliable witness. In my case, I have taken the time to actually ask people who have been around awhile. What this means, is that if your a City or County official, you need to realize that the City Engineers Monuments do not hold sway over original monuments, irregardless of the fact they are unrecorded. There was a case in 1880 in Santa Barbara that held this true. See Browns' book. If there is other acceptance of the monuments of the same character in the area, then I have a precedent to accept them.

2. The pipe looks like the tag has deteriorated and is in the same condition as the other monuments I'm finding in the area.

3. There are numerous unrecorded monuments set by government’s agencies in Santa Barbara. County Surveyor monuments, Caltrans, and City of Santa Barbara Engineers 5x5 monuments, monuments set per County Construction Plans, ect, ect , even with the last couple of years. Despite this fact, I as the surveyor must determine ALL EVIDENCE of the true location of the boundary.

The surveyor, if he is a professional, should be able to explain his methods and logic. If not, maybe he's just using a practice he's used to using and hasn't given it much thought.

This isn’t just SB County. Try surveying in Ojai sometime. You may not find anything.

Thanks Ric. I agree that a professional discussion of the available facts and evidence is much better and preferred than one party trying to dictate to the other.

I'm just looking to understand the rationale so I can explain it to another surveyor down the line that comes in to subdivide a lot across the street. Having the evidence/documentation in our file will make it easier to have that discussion with the next surveyor who may feel the tagged/ref centerline intersection monuments may better define the street centerline for establishing his boundary for his client.

Dennis,

Why didn't you just go directly to the surveyor to begin with? Or at least at the first sign of resistance from the developer who submitted the drawing?

Prior to your second to last post, I was under the impression that the surveyor was unwilling to provide the info. My understanding now is that you don't yet know that.



Eric,

You may not be addressing the same situation. You describe circumstances where it is widely known within SB County that certain areas, subdivisions, and where work was done by particular surveyors or in a particular era will have monumentation that was placed after the map was recorded or where no map was recorded and may or may not (mostly not) match what is called for in the record.

I don't know, but my impression is that LA County isn't like that. If there are areas or situations that fall into that category, they are limited to to specific surveys and in very small locales.

But the same basic concept is true, the surveyor accepted the non-record points over the record points based upon some solid evidence available to him (we hope).

The difference in SB County is that such extrinsic evidence has become common knowledge among the surveyors there. In LA County, whatever history there is regarding the monuments shown on this survey is not common knowledge, so the surveyor should provide his reasoning and list the evidence used for his decision.

I don't think anyone said that a surveyor could not use non-record points. I think pretty much everyone has said that if you do use them, you had better have a good reason for doing so, and be able to show their superiority over identifiable points of record.



Earlier, Ian asked about accepting a 60D nail. I had a survey a couple of years ago where I ended up accepting a concrete nail as one of my client's corners. There had been several surveys in this old neighborhood over the past 20 or so years, including a couple unrecorded ones.

In this 1923 sub, all of the big lots of the old sub had been divided into smaller, mostly odd shaped parcels over the years. According to the subsequesnt record maps, there was very little original monumentation in the original subdivision. Mostly, surveyors worked from the aliquot corners on the subdivision exterior and then worked their way in on record dimensions.

After 80 years of this, many of the record surveys did not fit each other, although a few did, somewhat. To re-establish my client's boundary, one side of which was the cl of an interior subdivision road, I had a choice of solutions depending upon which previous surveys I would hold to.

After going with what I thought was the best, a concrete nail that we had found fell within 0.01' of line and 0.07' from my proportioned position. Since my client and his neighbor were aware of it and thought it to be somewhere near their corner, and it had been there several years, I accepted it. I also thoroughly explained it on the narrative on the face of my survey.

I also set more substantial irons at the edge of the road easement on PL.

You SoCal guys are always good for a chuckle.

If I didn't use untagged monuments or require some sort extensive list of requirements in order to use an untagged monument (such as a chain of record documents back to 1850) then I'd have to start over and resurvey all of Sacramento County in order to Survey anything. Don't get me wrong, I tag my monuments but it's outside my power to go back to 1950 and make Joe Spink plug his pipes or justify why he put it in a certain spot. Generally the implied rationale used is "I'm Joe Spink, I rank just below God therefore I'm putting the pipe here, just take my word for it." So the pipe has been used for 58 years, what I'm gonna do? re-order the boundary universe now?

Not at all, Dave.

What we ARE saying is that, in order to accept a no referrence monument, with or without a tag or plug, we in Southern California must satisfy ourselves that:

1) it is a survey monument
2) it was intended to mark a particular corner
3) we happen to agree, more or less, with its location

The idea that a fence can substantiate a no record point falls squarely under 2)

We Southern Californians don't need to re-order the universe, we just need to satisfy ourselves that yon pipe really is something we need to concern ourselves with.

Now, get back to your chuckling and send us some water dammit!

that the pipe that Subman was talking about was set by Joe Spink, well, end of conversation. Subman should just accept it as being perfect and the other pipes can just fall wherever they do.

"Send us some water" - that was funny!

I hope I'm not a SoCal surveyor! Anyway, I may have gotten off-track a little from the point of the discussion. Sorry. I had the day off and decided to get on my high-horse.

Thanks all! I knew I could count on some great feedback from this forum. Ian's comment "...send us some water dammit" almost made me spit out my coffee when I read it.

On a separate topic, my civil engineering alter ego has to write a report back to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on how the drought is affecting pending development applications. As a recommendation to solve the problem, can I quote you Ian?

Why bother...we are jsut going to take the water anyhow, like always!!

Everything Ian says in his last post is true but sometimes you have to infer those things.

L.A. County in particular is a different universe. The last time I examined a problem down there it took me two days to get through the stack of stuff I downloaded from the City and County websites. It sure would be nice if we had that kind of record keeping up here.

Unfortunately, Northern Cal may not have any water to send. The west side valley farmers are dry. People not watering their lawns due to forclosure has helped a bit.

Now, on to the point. I use found unrecorded, undocumented "pipes" / monumnets as a point of reversing out to prove other control. I teach my guys to walk the centerline of the road with a high sensitivity metal detector.
wwwwp! a nail leads to a possible pipe. this pipe must be proven out as Ian says, whether is Is Joe Spinks or Abe Lincolns.

To ealborate on Ians point No. ONE, I've seen many a survey accept old stop sign posts. One guy indicated "unrecorded", "untagged" brass monumnets found and accepted for right-of-way line. He threw out fencelines of occupation and a couple of other untagged/unrecorded pipes.
My client hired me to check it all out. I measured backwards from his new pipes. The two brass monuments fit his survey perfectly except I got wet when the property owner turned on the sprinklers. . . which is what they were. In this case, fencelines of occupation fit well to deeds, the two unrecorded pipes fit well but unfortunately, I had to toss out the sprinklers.
This guy only practiced for about another year before leaving the area.

Oh, sorry about the WATER / SPRINKLER thing. . . true story, bad timing ?

Hey I have some of those brass "monuments" out in my yard. I better go move those things into my neighbor's lawn ;-)

Dave, better make sure they are tagged!

Hey Dave K,

easy on the free water to the neighbors thing. We have sensitive so-calers lookin for water.

two years ago, I had a field crew shoot a "diamond shaped monument" as a section corner. I went out there to find it to be a black diamond shaped rock about an inch thick. The heck of it was, the 3-ffot tall concrete monumnet stood 11 feet away near the base of a fenceline intersection.

Yeah, that crew didnt last too long with a picky guy like me.

I wil post a GPS isms

Found 2" Brass monuments, no record .....

That's a great story. I almost don't believe it. Before I got licensed, I learned to go out on boundary surveys and at least "walk the bounds" and take a look at what the crew had located. Sometimes the total lack of knowing what they are locating is sad to relate: Sawed off fence posts, grounding rods ect.... That surveyor must not been out there himself (I hope).

Maybe you should send that experience to Lucas.