California Surveyors Forums

I was speaking to Curt O'Bryan, Deputy County Surveyor and the Supervising Field Engineer (Curt does not like the "engineer" part) at LA County Survey Division and he told me he had just gotten back an answer from the board concerning multiple sheet corner records.

According to the board, a CR should be one sheet and one sheet only.

So...with that "decision" I guess it will take a bit of creativity to do multiple sheet CR's that are NOT multiple sheet CR's.

The timing was perfect. I was working on a double sheet CR as I was talking to him about another matter before the CR subject came up.

The reasoning of the board just fails me on this one. I do multi sheet CR's to provide a service to the general public and the surveying community in LA County.

Later today I am going to post two single sheet CR's that I will be submitting..This is the oddest thing, both CR's are a continuation of valuable information one to the other!! Now what are the chances of that??

Your post went perfectly with the posting of the link to the 2013 LS Act.

8773.1 says single sheet

I see what you're saying Paul, but I think the law is clear. Whether it should be changed or not, I don't know. You can always ask your CLSA Chapter's Directors to submit revised language for 8773.1 to the Legislative committee, if they agree with you. The board's response to Curt is probably just a response that the law says it has to be a single sheet.

I am really not on either side of this fence. I would prefer multiple sheets with corresponding page numbers, it does make it all flow better. Since single sheet is the only way to go now, all I am doing is preparing two CR that are each a single sheet. One will be showing the parcel and some control, which will have it's heading to reflect the parcel being surveyed. The second CR will be titled something like "Monument Reference Document" that will show the rest of the information.

Unfortunately, this decision will cause some professionals to show less on their CR. Everyone loses when that happens.

Seems to me that no matter what there will always be someone out there who is trying to massage those rules to suit their own purposes.

The Corner Record was created to assist in perpetuating monuments without preparing a Record of Survey.

It was NOT created to do boundary surveys or to do multiple sheets.

The rules say one sheet. If you don't like it, try to change it, but please stop *****ing about it.

Paul: It is good that the County denied your request to file multi page, but only because it would be in violation of the PLS Act.

As the author/signator of a copious number of Corner Records I feel the need to speak out.
If the preparation and filing is difficult (or more difficult than in the past) it may not get done at all.

Surveying is an art, and the mapping of those surveys is an art also. Multi Sheet drawings can be confusing, regardless of the sheet size, but many times needless redundancy is saved and the relationship between the sheets (and information) can be made very clear.

PLS Act 8773.1, Board Rule 464, and form BORPELS-1297 are all very clear.
As to the original purpose and the purpose of the changes... that is debatable.

Personally I think the change to one sheet only was a well-intentioned but misguided attempt at eliminating poor mapping. Yes, there were a ton of funky multi sheet Corner Records filed. Heck, I see many crummy single sheet Record of Surveys that are darn hard to read.

Multi Sheet Corner Records can be a very valuable and expedient method of perpetuating the character and location of monuments. There are many examples on file state wide. The additional effort of creating multiple Corner Records or preparing a Record of Survey probably results in less information and serves no purpose.

Existing language in 8773.1 ("A corner record shall be a single 8.5 by 11 inch sheet which may consist of a front and back page.") could be simply modified to read "A corner record shall be 8.5 by 11 inch sheet(s)."

The corner record was created due to the exorbitant fees charged by some counties for a RS but were not designed for more than a lot survey. What would really help is a reasonable fee by all counties for recording a RS. After all it's a "record of survey" and they really should only be doing minimal checking anyway; north arrow, surveyors cert and stamp and maybe a few other things.

There was a provision for Corner Records way back in the 1985 LS Act, I don't know when it was originally created. It would be interesting to know, along with the legislative history.
"... provided that a corner record is filed for any property corners which are set or reset or found to be of a different character than indicated on prior records."
See: Legislative News, the Cal Surveyor, issue 78, page 8.

Does everyone realize that 8773.1 was changed in 2000 to add the single sheet language. The single sheet rull has been in effect for 13 years.

Rule not rull, sorry

"There was a provision for Corner Records way back in the 1985 LS Act, I don't know when it was originally created. It would be interesting to know, along with the legislative history."

The Corner Record provisions in our LS Act regarding government monuments has been around a long time, at least prior to 1978. The law was revised probably around 1983 or 84 but maybe it was 85 to allow/include "simple" lot surveys to be shown via a CR so that there would be at least a record of Bruce Hall surveying some mom and pop lot in Huntington Beach or any city for that matter. As long as nothing triggered any of the RS requirements, I would HAVE TO FILE a CR for ANY LOT SURVEY that I performed.

Prior to that time, many surveys were not recorded via a RS for these "simple" surveys, cause many surveyors thought that the RS triggers did not come into play-(even when prorating half a foot in a 600 foot long block). This was supposedly a way to get these things recorded and save a RS checking fee in the process.

"Just show use 4 lines with bearings and distances, 4 circles, Lot and Tract Number and sign your name. That is all you will need to show on these Corner Records for your simple lot surveys." That is what was pitched to our chapter meeting when CLSA tried to revise this portion of the law.

Well that ain't how it turned out. At least not here in the OC.

[quote="The rules say one sheet. If you don't like it, try to change it, but please stop *****ing about it.[/QUOTE"]


Try reading the post again..I was in a conversation with Curt and he brought the subject up. The reason he asked the board for an opinion is that one four page CR took his technician all day to check. Ohh, it was not one of mine.

Peter Ehlert wrote:Paul: It is good that the County denied your request to file multi page, but only because it would be in violation of the PLS Act.

No one denied any request. Curt brought the subject up.. Try reading and quit making stuff up.

I have submitted quite a few multiples which were never denied.

It's a ridiculous decision.

Paul: excuse me, I misunderstood.

interesting to note, corner records have been around for a long time. I have quite a few from around mid 1930's filed by the BRC project. (Blister Rust Control) therefore I will assume, corner records were not created in response to high map check fees.

" corner records were not created in response to high map check fees."

This is correct. The provisions allowing for the setting of property corners to be reflected via a Corner Record, instead of a RS and the subsequent checking fees, was ONE OF THE reasons this portion of the PLSA was revised.