Dedicated To The Wrong Information

Our company submits engineering plans to the county for review. One of the review comments is to transfer a portion of the land for widening the road in the future. The permit reviewer’s message states, “Dedicate land. Proposed twenty feet from the centerline, making it a future forty-foot road.” The current road is sixty feet wide and the county has already taken the land decades ago.

Typically, this mistake is due to them using an online map program that is not accurate. For context, the first message that appears before you can even use the program is, “All maps are not to be used for official purposes.” We send a comment back saying the road is already dedicated as a land survey was done. A week later, the same comment returns. I call the reviewer on the phone.

Me: “Your comment says for us to dedicate land for a future forty-foot road. The road is already sixty feet and is thirty feet from the centerline. If we do that, the county will be giving the owner of the property land.”

Reviewer: “The map says it is only thirty feet, so please dedicate it.”

Me: “The map is not accurate. It even says so before you can open it. The land survey, which is accurate, says it is sixty feet. Does the county want to give us land?”

Reviewer: “The map can’t be wrong.”

It took a week and two supervisors to tell him to knock it off.