CCS83 REQUIRED

[laveyb24]

I am hoping someone with more knowledge can chime in on this.

I have a CS who's governing board passed an ordinance requiring that ALL land divisions (final map, parcel map, etc) be required to be on CCS83 with a geodetic/gps basis of bearing. Is this legal and Why?

Thanks in advance for all your assistance.

[Warren Smith]

A great number of larger Cities require this as part of populating their GIS. If not prohibited by State statute, a local ordinance may be adopted through the usual public hearings, stating the purpose. In fact, that should be part of the Ordinance itself.

[laveyb24]

This is a hypothetical question but say working with GPS and state plane coordinates is not my strong suit. Would they be forcing me to work outside of my area of expertise?

[Warren Smith]

Interesting hypothetical. It leads to your hiring a surveyor who is proficient on a consultant basis, or the client does so. Restraint of trade? More likely market forces at work for a given specialty - that of subdivision mapping. These ordinances have been around long enough to have been challenged. It would seem the public is more efficiently served by this requirement than having GIS specialists grind through without direct supervision of an LS.

[David Kendall]

I think it ought to be statewide, gets the AP maps and subdivisions on CCS, aids emergency response, easy enough to do it was a requirement for all subdivisions in Travis County, Texas at least 12 years ago it made things real nice to drop a georeferenced AP map into AutoCAD at then get the next one over and it lined right up. Next you can practically go and stake out the lot corners. Dark ages here in CA not to have that working

[Bruce Johnson]

Orange County has had this requirement since the early 90's, per a Board of Supervisors ordinance.

[Tracy Park]

Public Resources Code 8816??

8816. The use of the State Plane Coordinates by any person, corporation, or governmental agency engaged in land surveying or mapping is optional.

[NickL]

...It would seem the public is more efficiently served by this requirement than having GIS specialists grind through without direct supervision of an LS.

Not disagreeing with this statement, but wouldn't it be more efficient to just require all boundary points be identified w/ geodetic coordinates? Might as well avoid any confusion based on those blasted bearings and distances... just suck it into the GIS! It's so easy a caveman can do it.

[Anthony Maffia]

What happens when a later boundary retracement determines differing coordinates? I thought there were real issues with Torrens title.

[astrodanco]

This is a hypothetical question but say working with GPS and state plane coordinates is not my strong suit. Would they be forcing me to work outside of my area of expertise?

You mean to say that you are hypothetically incompetent?

[Edward M Reading]

What happens when a later boundary retracement determines differing coordinates? I thought there were real issues with Torrens title.

Who said anything about Torrens Title? This is about allowing subdivisions to be more easily inserted into a GIS and about having those subdivisions tighten up the positions in an existing GIS.

[William Magee]

It would be something the agency can require providing a nexus can be proven. The nexus would seem to be readily proven based on an agency's desire to create an accurate land-net database.
However, if the land-net database / GIS database does not convey to the user a level of accuracy commensurate with the effort expended to develop maps based on CCS 83, then one might argue that it is an unfair burden to the subdivision owner to pay for such an endeavor.
If the GIS database does not convey to the user the epoch relationships of each part and parcel provided, nor if it differentiates those parcels of high precision accuracy versus those parcels displayed by best guestimated positions of historic mapping, nor if it provides an understanding of accuracy of imagery location to the varying epochs each map coordinate is based upon, then it could be argued that an approximate lat/long is all that would be necessary for parcel incorporation into the GIS (i.e. the nexus) versus the effort to develop a CCS 83 map for which the accuracy is unusable to the end user and therefor unnecessary for the GIS developer.
The evidence of lack of a true nexus in such an agency mandate may become even more acute in 2022 when CCS 83 goes out the door and all new maps will be on a datum even further shifted than the varying epochs of CCS 83 to date.
Simply put, if the GIS database is a decoupage of varying map epochs, datums and accuracies, then is developing maps on CCS 83 a necessary burden?

[Peter Ehlert]

GIS is one use, but a red herring I think. Having ties to CCS83 can also aid in boundary recovery... that is a good thing.

[NickL]

It would be something the agency can require providing a nexus can be proven. The nexus would seem to be readily proven based on an agency's desire to create an accurate land-net database.
However, if the land-net database / GIS database does not convey to the user a level of accuracy commensurate with the effort expended to develop maps based on CCS 83, then one might argue that it is an unfair burden to the subdivision owner to pay for such an endeavor.
If the GIS database does not convey to the user the epoch relationships of each part and parcel provided, nor if it differentiates those parcels of high precision accuracy versus those parcels displayed by best guestimated positions of historic mapping, nor if it provides an understanding of accuracy of imagery location to the varying epochs each map coordinate is based upon, then it could be argued that an approximate lat/long is all that would be necessary for parcel incorporation into the GIS (i.e. the nexus) versus the effort to develop a CCS 83 map for which the accuracy is unusable to the end user and therefor unnecessary for the GIS developer.
The evidence of lack of a true nexus in such an agency mandate may become even more acute in 2022 when CCS 83 goes out the door and all new maps will be on a datum even further shifted than the varying epochs of CCS 83 to date.
Simply put, if the GIS database is a decoupage of varying map epochs, datums and accuracies, then is developing maps on CCS 83 a necessary burden?

hear! hear!

[Jim Frame]

Simply put, if the GIS database is a decoupage of varying map epochs, datums and accuracies, then is developing maps on CCS 83 a necessary burden?

The one city near me that requires CC83 ties does so in the form of ties to its own geodetic network, which is published as 1999.51, so everyone's on the same page, at least in theory.

In practice, I know that the ties shown on some of the city's Final Maps are maybe not so reliable. Shortly after filing a ROS for some new city control marks I got a call from a CAD person at a local engineering firm. She wanted the coordinates for one of the new marks so she could drop them into her drawing file and calculate a tie to it from her subdivision linework. Yeesh.

[Edward M Reading]

OK, so this "burden" that people are referring to consists of setting up an L2 receiver on two points for an hour while you do other work, emailing those files to OPUS and reporting the coordinates. Even if you have to rent the receivers or hire someone to do it, this "burden" is pretty light. Come on, it's 2017, GPS is not some alien technology.

[Dave Lindell]

Orange County has had this requirement since the early 90's, per a Board of Supervisors ordinance.

And Orange County provided a dense network to tie into also.

(Is it John Canas we had to thank for this?)

There was no excuse for NOT using the given coordinate system.

[laveyb24]

The point I am trying to make here is if local governments can pass ordinances requiring CCS83 what comes next? How ever minimal the cost is it is still a cost absorbed by the private surveyor. I understand the government surveyors on here have no idea what its like to actually bid a job and stay within a budget nor do they realize how competitive our industry is. I like how people loves to talk tough over the internet. NONE of you know me personally but try and discredit me immediately.

[Peter Ehlert]

laveyb24 I believe your question has been answered.
I reviewed the responses, and I don't see any personal attacks.
Actually your hypothetical is amusing, working within your area of competence is assumed.

Your anger with public employees is miss-directed, they did not create the local ordinance requiring ties.

If you wish to identify yourself, and your location perhaps you would get some assistance, good luck!

[land butcher]

OK, so this "burden" that people are referring to consists of setting up an L2 receiver on two points for an hour while you do other work, emailing those files to OPUS and reporting the coordinates. Even if you have to rent the receivers or hire someone to do it, this "burden" is pretty light. Come on, it's 2017, GPS is not some alien technology.

I disagree that this burden is light. 2-man crew time is above $200/hr. I would think the daily rate for 2 GPS units would have to be at least $200 then add in the time picking up and returning the units, plus the office time to download and process the data and place the data on the map, especially difficult as the cors/ngs stations are usually far outside the map boundary. I wonder what your client would say when his bill is increased by $500+ for the agency GIS map.
At least the County of Orange networked almost every major intersection in the county so it could be done without GPS units, many times those intersections are part of the map boundary. I doubt any other counties did the same.

[astrodanco]

You don't like being continually "nickeled and dimed" to death by the county, so to speak. Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile. I get it. But if you're paying $200/hour to rent GPS receivers for this purpose, then please go on over to Ebay and buy yourself some old survey grade receivers and antennas. They'll be just as good for this purpose as anything more modern and they'll quickly pay for themselves many times over. Set them up and let them collect static data while you're working on other aspects of the project. And of course, OPUS is a free service.

[Edward M Reading]

I disagree that this burden is light. 2-man crew time is above $200/hr. I would think the daily rate for 2 GPS units would have to be at least $200 then add in the time picking up and returning the units, plus the office time to download and process the data and place the data on the map, especially difficult as the cors/ngs stations are usually far outside the map boundary. I wonder what your client would say when his bill is increased by $500+ for the agency GIS map.
At least the County of Orange networked almost every major intersection in the county so it could be done without GPS units, many times those intersections are part of the map boundary. I doubt any other counties did the same.

You throw a cheap L2 unit on two points while you are doing other work, you email the files to a free government service, rotate, translate and you are done. It's about an hour of work.

[William Magee]

At a bare bones discussion, if an agency requires additional survey effort, my being a surveyor that would seem to be a good thing. More effort required generally equates to more dollars in my pocket. For what its worth, I don't bid work so in effect I'm not likely to "eat" costs in order to procure work. But I digress.

An agency surveyor stated that the work of placing a map on CCS 83 is extremely minimal. 1 hour of work. Perhaps, but I'd like to explore that a bit more, later.

Its been said a surveyor should not be an advocate for his/her client. That may be true for boundary determinations, but perhaps not so for navigating agency processes.

In an early life I worked as an agency surveyor. Being green I recall asking my boss - the head agency engineer/surveyor (pre-82 RCE FWIW) about a condition he was placing on a tentative subdivision map. It didn't seem fair (mind you I had just learned about the Dolan v Tigard decision). My boss's reply: "sometimes you have to buffalo them".

So today I advise my clients about terms such as nexus. Some clients will take that rein as is they should and as is their right.

As for taking a subdivision map and placing it on CCS 83, I think it being downplayed as being a minimalistic 1 hour effort might be somewhat of an exaggeration. Perhaps even bordering on being a "buffalo"

For one, developing an azimuth pair by GPS is not as simple as just throwing a unit on a couple of corners and blasting those results off to OPUS. That would be pretty much akin to the dreaded surveyor method which has been commonly and unfondly described by some as "grab 2 monuments and go". Azimuth pairs by GPS, for some of at least, requires having the pair spread apart about 1,300'.
Compounding matters, is what locations GPS readings should or can be taken. It is rare in my locale to set up GPS actually on a corner. One of my recent projects required traversing a considerable distance from a suitable sky to the project location. In these difficult site situations consider the difficulty getting an azimuth pair to commence the traverse and another azimuth pair to end on. Consider also that use of OPUS for control network is not always an accepted procedure by some for their control networks. Its true but I'll leave that debate for some future blovation.

And lastily, incorporating CCS 83 into a map while also meeting the PRC requirements takes me considerably more than an hour for data analysis and drafting effort. Maybe I'm slow, I don't know. Perhaps I get sidetracked during that effort thinking about things such as nexus and buffaloers.

[David Kendall]

Azimuth pairs by GPS, for some of at least, requires having the pair spread apart about 1,300'.

Please elaborate. I understand the longer backsight the better idea but I use shorter setups frequently (I usually set azimuth triplets so I have a check shot) but I've never heard the 1300' actually never heard any minimum distance specs

[William Magee]

The 1,300' referred to was from a recent project of mine and is based on that particular projects achieved and desired accuracies.
There are quite a number of good publications on achieving accuracies with gps. One used by the Ca DOT is found in the following link. See Section 5.7. I'm not positive if this is their latest guidance, please check with them as to any updates.

http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/row/landsurvey ... urveys.pdf