Georeferencing Systems before the Cadastral Survey

[Lee Nellis]

I never realized quite how smart Thomas Jefferson was until this week. Having arrived in Vermont, I find that unless somebody remember the name of the applicant we cannot find anything relating to a permit or permits on a given parcel of land. Out West, you would (at least you should, there are a few jurisdictions that aren't that bright) file everything using the cadastral survey and never worry about alphabetizing or what date an application was filed, etc. How do you folks who work in places without a master survey system find anything? As Williston grows from a few hundred parcels to over 10,000, the limits of memory (and good luck) are being reached. Our tax people have a parcel numbering system, but it really isn't geographical. We also have addresses, of course, but they all changed when the county did a 911 system, so they don't help you find permits that are more than about 10 years old. Any suggestions would be helpful?

 

[SGB]

When I worked in New England, we filed land use permit materials using the tax map numbers in the assessor's file cabinets. That way, we could find them easily, and anyone interested in the assessment information also had the land use permit history too.

Of course, it helped that the Planning office was next door to Assessing.

 

[NHPlanner]

Welcome to New England Lee. ;-)

We have everything filed by Tax Map and Lot Number, in ALL Departments. I think that is the common practice for most of us round these parts.

 

[Lee Nellis]

A follow-up question, if you guys are still reading this thread. Do your tax map numbers make sense? That is, can you look at a tax map number you have not seen before and immediately know where in the community that parcel is?

 

[SGB]

You get used to the tax map numbering system after a while, Lee.

Just keep that index sheet handy for a while. :-D

 

[NHPlanner]

A follow-up question, if you guys are still reading this thread. Do your tax map numbers make sense? That is, can you look at a tax map number you have not seen before and immediately know where in the community that parcel is?

Our numbering system (for the Tax Map #'s, not necessarily the parcel #'s) is geographically oriented. Town is broken down into 19 Tax Maps, Map 1 in the Southernmost part of town, sequentially from west to east, then north to the next row, and so on to Map 18. Our one quirk is that the area containing the Manchester Airport area is numbered Tax Map 28.....so we have Maps 1 through 18, then Map 28.

 

[mike gurnee]

When I was back east, everything was filed by address. We cross-indexed by applicant name and by application date. And this was before computers! Fortunately the city was not growing.