I don't need anything surveyed (yet), but trying to confirm the ROW width of a county road. A utility has a surveyor staking a new line and keep running into issues. First time they came out they claimed the ROW was 60 (probably wrong) which put them about 20' into a wheat field. Then they pulled up their stakes and laid the new stakes on top of other utilities without getting locates. These guys are sloppy. I am concerned it is going to become a dispute with them. I would like to have a little information in my back pocket before I have to hire my own RPLS to tell them they are wrong.

You can't look at your plat for the ROW width?

Howdy Dammit said:

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You can't look at your plat for the ROW width?

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Haha.

Plat

There is no plat. This is rural property that has not been through platting process.

My experience is that CAD mapping is often inaccurate

Call the county and ask them what they claim as ROW there.

If not, pull your deed and neighbors deeds and see if anyone's metes and bounds calls for the ROW.

I have looked at the deeds for properties on both sides of the road. Neither of them mentions ROW. There was a plat done on a corner of the tract opposite us about 15 years ago. It was not on the boundary where this ROW is, and the description of the unplatted remainder was just ...remainder of XXX acre tract... (Or whatever vague language they use for partial plats)

Is your legal description to the middle of the road?

There are metes and bounds, but the road is never mentioned as part of the deeds going back to about 1900.

We had a surveyor prepare a description for the 1 acre the house is on for the homestead decades ago. He says the ROW is in the ditch and set pins for it. He says the ROW is no way 60', but he is too booked up to help right now. The utility surveyor doesn't want to listen to that, but they also keep having to reset stakes. They didn't even know there was an existing easement for a water line they were working in.

Trying to avoid getting a boundary survey done just to prove these utility guys wrong, but we may have to do that. I was wanting see if anyone else had experience in the area who could tell me if there were better records on the ROW than having boundary surveys done.

Does your cad have an online gis? See what width they mapped the road to, they usually have some basis or frame of reference to go off of on those, even if they didn't have the actual title

I've done a little work in Hays County but I have a ton of experience in proving up historical county road right-of-way acquisition. Unfortunately, these things often prove to be an exercise in proving a negative. Though with enough research you can often set a defensible baseline that can't be proven wrong.

If you'd like to give me some details to work from in an email I'd be happy to take a cursory look at what you're dealing with for the fun of it.
eastforksurveying@gmail.com

For those suggesting, the CAD is not useful here and the County will likely only know to tell you what their current standards are. Also not useful in this context.

Sounds like a prescriptive ROW issue. We run into it all the time trying to run lines in public rights of way. County never actually took ROW, but maintains the road for the public use. Landowners technically own to the center of the road. PM me you want to discuss in detail

Ask them what they are using for their survey control/staking sheet. If they don't have a hard copy ask for whatever digital files they have, and might ask who is is their RPLS.

SAM is a survey company located on 290 just west of MOPAC. I think they're Aggie owned.

dahouse said:

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Sounds like a prescriptive ROW issue. We run into it all the time trying to run lines in public rights of way. County never actually took ROW, but maintains the road for the public use. Landowners technically own to the center of the road. PM me you want to discuss in detail

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Prescriptive ROW is the exception rather than the rule in my experience. It's easy to fall back on lacking the resources to really investigate the origins of a long established county road. But it looks not to apply to Hays County.

Texas Transportation Code 258 was passed in the 2003 session of the legislature. It authorized counties to go through a process that would account for the potential 5th Amendment Takings Clause in order to declare roads long maintained with County funds as having a public interest. Hays County appears to have gone through this process beginning in May, 2004. Though I haven't yet found the Minutes adopting the map and finalizing the process. Here are a few relevant Minutes:

Presentation on the concept and steps to be undertaken on page 3.
Carried motion to instruct staff to go forward with the process on page 3.

Transportation Code 258.002.f requires that "The county clerk shall keep a county road map adopted under this section in a place accessible to the public." This should be on a wall in the Clerk's office.

None of the above helps OP with the width of the ROW but it does lay a base legal foundation for franchise utilities utilizing the public ROW.

rather be fishing said:

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SAM is a survey company located on 290 just west of MOPAC. I think they're Aggie owned.

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This isn't a SAM Inc kind of deal, I can assure you.

I am familiar with SAM, and while I respect the work they do and have good experience with them previously, I would probably start somewhere else.

Thanks for that info normaleagle

Will send you a PM.

Hire a local RPLS with exp. in Hays county. Mom and pop type operation or a small local firm.

A good place to start is the Board roster search here:
https://pels.texas.gov/roster/rplssearch.html
Start calling some of the guys listed and see if they are game.

Could be prescriptive issue, but it might not. 60' seems awfully wide, but im not familiar with Hays cnty. A local surveyor would know who to ask and where to look for any record info (commissioner meeting minutes) to hang your hat on. Good luck.

Call McMichael land surveying. They do a ton of work for us in Hays.

rather be fishing said:

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SAM is a survey company located on 290 just west of MOPAC. I think they're Aggie owned.

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SAM is NOT aggie owned.

I've seen CR ROW extend 30 feet from the centerline of the road in a lot of instances. So, the 60 ft might check out. Also, there's so much surveying work out there that the A, B, and C teams are booked for months out on the big jobs, and the F teams are probably the ones you are dealing with.

normaleagle05 said:

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rather be fishing said:

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SAM is a survey company located on 290 just west of MOPAC. I think they're Aggie owned.

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This isn't a SAM Inc kind of deal, I can assure you.

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You got that right!!

hellapark said:

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Hire a local RPLS with exp. in Hays county. Mom and pop type operation or a small local firm.

A good place to start is the Board roster search here:
https://pels.texas.gov/roster/rplssearch.html
Start calling some of the guys listed and see if they are game.

Could be prescriptive issue, but it might not. 60' seems awfully wide, but im not familiar with Hays cnty. A local surveyor would know who to ask and where to look for any record info (commissioner meeting minutes) to hang your hat on. Good luck.

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Very likely the repository of the answers you seek when combined with the enabling legislation. Not necessarily easy to discern those answers from the background of a whole lot of information.

Ha! Thanks H.

They're built for speed. A good thing when you need to cover ground. Not a good thing when you're hunting arrowheads. Just different stuff.

My brother is an RPLS in Kyle. Class of 93. landsurveyor@aggienetwork.com