Public Works and Transportation - Survey Division

The City of Dallas, Survey Division was formed in the early 1900's to provide surveying services to various City departments, as well as providing a resource to the City Council for information relating to Right-of-Way and other City properties.  Initially, the Survey Division dealt solely with Right-of-Way and Boundary issues, but in 1978, the Survey Division began to assume most, if not all of the Surveying operations for City departments such as the Dallas Water Utilities, Streets & Sanitation, Parks Department and the City Engineering Department, as well as accommodating Surveying requests from the Police Department, City Attorneys office, City Commission, Property Management and the Department of Aviation.  In addition to fulfilling the Surveying needs of these organizations, Survey Division would be assigned the task of surveying, or reviewing the work of contract surveyors, for City Bond programs.  Surveying requests include:

• Right-of-Way and Boundary for Streets, Alleys, Utility access or any other accession when the City requires the purchase of land in Fee Simple, Absolute.
• Route and Alignment (Streets, alleys, utilities etc.)
• Topographic and Site Surveys for Engineering or Architectural design.
• Location surveys for Statute specific applications (i.e.: Sexually Oriented Businesses)
• Construction measure ups for contractor's final payment.
• Field investigation of suspected encroachments or other boundary questions

Additional tasks assigned to Surveying Division which do not entail field surveys include, but are not limited to:

• Plat Review
• Field Note Review (boundary descriptions prepared for the City by outside consultants)
• Preparation of Drawings and other documents (for City Attorneys office, etc.)
• Archival Research in response to requests from private citizens and consultants*

The staff of nine Registered Professional Land Surveyors offers a combined total in excess of 180 years of surveying experience, and at times has been required to bring this experience to bear in providing professional opinions and expert testimony for several departments within the City.  As an ever increasing workload necessitates outsourcing more projects, this professional staff will be required to provide a peer review of the work submitted by professional surveyors in the private sector, to ensure compliance with Texas state surveying regulations as well as specific City contract provisions.

Though future needs and technology are impossible to predict, the Survey Division is dedicated to sustaining the high level of service it has historically provided to the City of Dallas and its citizens.

Function

*Survey Division maintains a records storage vault which contains copies of field notebooks, sketches, final plats and other survey records, dating from (at least) 1894.  Every task undertaken by the Survey Section, whether Survey related or otherwise, is fully documented and all records are logged into a comprehensive database and archived in this vault.