Land surveyor
- Thread starter 89-LX
- Start date
89-LX
Forum Member
Price doesn't seem to bad. I've heard rates of over $2000. I'm looking at splitting a property, and I need the new plat surveyed off the current plat.
ultradriver10000
Forum Member
I'm kind of in the same boat, but I feel I might just try to do it myself. I have almost 5 acres and want to know where my property actually ends. I did find one marker, might be able to find the other corners tho...
89-LX
Forum Member
Just found out today that the city won't split the property. The property is 1350' x 326'. The piece the current owner want to split and give us is the front part, that's about 250' x 250'. The current township zoning ordinance states "All lots shall not be three (3) times longer than their width." Their property currently exceeds the current ordinance, but is grandfathered in from when the property was built. But if they split it, the new piece has to conform to the new current zoning ordinances.
All of us are beyond pist. We could file for a variance, but he said it's highly unlikely that it would be approved. To go that route, we would need to pay for a survey ($600-$1600), pay the fee to submit a property split ($300), get denied, then be able to file for a variance after being denied at the cost of another $500 to file. So a minimum of $1400, with as high $2400 or higher, to take a chance on possibly getting the property split.
The reasoning I was given was that this is in place so that people don't create runway length properties. A runway length property already exists, and this would reducing the property with the exception of a 76' wide, by 250' deep piece of property that is their current driveway. I feel like this city ordinance was enacted to discourage personal property splits, and encourage developers to buy property and make them into subdivisions. There is a ton of other properties in the area that have been split, which I assume was prior to the ordinance. One even has a tiny sliver about 75' wide, that opens up to 2 other larger steps when the 2 other parcels on it were split in the past, and that's on city owned property.
I'm not quite sure what to do at this point. Anyone have any tips or tricks? This is in Macomb Township.
All of us are beyond pist. We could file for a variance, but he said it's highly unlikely that it would be approved. To go that route, we would need to pay for a survey ($600-$1600), pay the fee to submit a property split ($300), get denied, then be able to file for a variance after being denied at the cost of another $500 to file. So a minimum of $1400, with as high $2400 or higher, to take a chance on possibly getting the property split.
The reasoning I was given was that this is in place so that people don't create runway length properties. A runway length property already exists, and this would reducing the property with the exception of a 76' wide, by 250' deep piece of property that is their current driveway. I feel like this city ordinance was enacted to discourage personal property splits, and encourage developers to buy property and make them into subdivisions. There is a ton of other properties in the area that have been split, which I assume was prior to the ordinance. One even has a tiny sliver about 75' wide, that opens up to 2 other larger steps when the 2 other parcels on it were split in the past, and that's on city owned property.
I'm not quite sure what to do at this point. Anyone have any tips or tricks? This is in Macomb Township.
89-LX
Forum Member
The individual at the city building told me that they cannot have a variance meeting unless what we proposed was already denied. It seems like other in the past have filed for variances before being denied. Trying to see if we can go that route.
I have found 4 instances in the past where they have made variances since 2012 to the 3:1 ordinance. In 2 of them, it was combining properties that were in the 10:1 area, but when combined, made them close to 5:1 and were approved. The other two were properties that were being split and fell into a range of 1:35 all the way up to 1:7.5, which were approved. Trying to do my lawyer best and research past precedence for future arguments.
ultradriver10000
Forum Member
Why not split it into like 4 parts?
89-LX
Forum Member
Private drives are not allowed in Macomb Township. It would need to be zoned as a subdivision then. I'm working with the township to find a solution, because currently it's zoned as AG, so each section needs a minimum of 200' of frontage. We are looking at the option of rezoning as R-1-E, thus it will bring the frontage down to 100'. Then we need to seek a variance for the width to depth ratio then. The city planning manager seemed ok with the variance, but it's not up to him.
ultradriver10000
Forum Member
What a pain in the a$$ over nothing. Thanks government.
Justindwright
Club Member
I got a few quotes for a simple boundary survey on a 50x120 lot and got quotes between 1500-2000 to build a garage... NOT WORTH IT... adding a couple grand onto the price of a simple garage is ridiculous. The city should have that info on hand IMO.