California Surveyors Forums

With the advent of 8725.1 how many local Cities have a contract City Surveyor??? Our PLS recently retired and the City is not filling the position. So we are looking at contracting it out and we would like to talk to any Cities who have gone through the process of hiring a contract City surveyor.

Any contacts at these Cities would be greatly appreciated.

TIA

Rather than use a private surveying firm, our agency used to contract with the County for map review and approval until I became licensed. We don't do any field surveying in-house. Those contracts are rolled into the capital improvement program for whatever project they apply to.

That is the norm for most Cities without a City Surveyor. Although I once checked maps for the Cities of Bell and Maywood as a consultant, most County Surveyor's offices are set up to provide that service. The City of Downey has the Los Angeles County Surveyor sign as to compliance with the Subdivision Map Act, and the City Engineer signs as to conformance to the tentative map, for example.

And up here, we check final maps for all seven cities.

Bill

Los Angeles County would be pleased to resume providing subdivision map check services to the City of Glendale. We check maps for about 42 of the 88 cities in LA County. Searching our website, it looks like the City started using a contract surveyor to check and sign your maps starting in 2013. Prior to that we had checked your maps as far back as I can remember. Call me at (626) 458-4006 if you would like to discuss further.

Although I once checked maps for the Cities of Bell and Maywood as a consultant

You checked maps for the City of Bell? Surely you must have amassed enough money from that contract to retire a multi-millionaire!

Jim,

Sadly, no. Through a poorly written contract, I earned a flat rate for each map - no more than the developer was willing to pay.

If I only knew then ...

Bill:

What types of work would the City surveyor be expected to perform?

Is it only map checking and signing maps?

Or do the duties include other services, such as monument preservation, design surveys, aerial mapping, right of way mapping, legal descriptions, centerline surveys, etc.?

My experience with the fees an incorporated city will charge for just map checking will be the same that LA County charges.

Here is a partial list of what the county charges based on their current fee schedule:

PARCEL MAP 1-4 PARCELS = $ 5,949.00

MAP ANALYSIS FOR TRACTS 1-5 LOTS = 5,949.00

OTHER POSSIBLES RESPONSIBILITIES

EASEMENT CHECKING FOR TRACTS = $ 880.00

EASEMENT CHECKING FOR PARCELS = $ 440.00

MONUMENT INSPECTION EACH = $ 320.00

PRETTY MUCH A GOLD MINE. THE CITY WILL OF COURSE GET A BIG CHUNK
OF THE FEES, BUT EVEN AT 50% OF THE FEE IT'S EASY WORK TO DO

LS 4722 wrote:My experience with the fees an incorporated city will charge for just map checking will be the same that LA County charges.

Fee structures are established by city ordinance, so it's not as simple as just charging what the county charges. If their fee ordinance for those services are based on time and materials or contract plus overhead, then you're good to go. Otherwise, there's a process they would need to to go through to change that fee. Or they could just decide to charge their current fee, regardless of who checks their maps.

For the past few years we have sub'd out the map checking, and with our surveyor retired the sub is writing/reviewing legals too. But we need someone to oversee our two non-pls surveyors for the other duties Coast mentions that we handle in-house ("monument preservation, design surveys, aerial mapping, right of way mapping, legal descriptions, centerline surveys, etc.").

I wish all agencies had SURVEYORS checking legal desc instead of PE's or non licensed personal. That way "maybe" they took a legal desc class and would quit wanting lot and block turned into metes and bounds.

bill, what is your Glendale City email?