05/24/2006: "How Much Land Do You Own?"

In a May 3 memo to the County Council, Assessor Paul Dossett told the Council that "Property owners need the confidence that SJC is consistent in determine Simple Land Division acreage..". Dossett asked the Council to "Please change the UDC (Ed: the code that controls land use) to allow "equity, uniformity, and consistency" in acreage determinations.

Dossett was highlighting for the Council the fact that some property owners may "own" more or less than they thought they owned. Depending on what process was used to define a parcel of land, it is possible to come up a little short- or for some folks, a little long in the acre size of a property. For most of us this poses no problem, but for some it can mean the difference between being able to cut off a section of property to create a new parcel, or it may restrict -or allow- one's ability to qualify for one of the county programs that allow a reduction in land taxes, such as the Open Space program.

The problem is well known and understood, and results from the evolution of survey methods that have evolved from, to use an extreme example from Texas, a survey being conducted by someone floating down a river and describing boundary lines as terminating at the base of a cottonwood tree, or some other mark on the river bank, to the precise use of satellites and GPS technology that has become the standard of today. But the new technology is just that, new, and some of the maps are still used today result from drawing straight lines, on a flat piece of paper, that are intended to reflect curved lines on a somewhat round planet. Works fairly well, but that 20 acres Joe owns, and that he plans to cut into two ten acre pieces, as allowed by the zoning he lives in, turns out to be 19 and some fraction of an acre. So Joe cannot do what he had planned to do, because Joe is on the wrong side of the necessary adjustments of some portions of parcels, that have been made to compensate for the curvature of the earth.

The problem has not been a problem in the past, since the Assessor's maps have simply made the necessary adjustment in the description of a property to reflect the expected total as per the rules and regulations of surveying. But this all changed in 1998 when the maps started to be based on actual surveys that showed the true total area of land contained by the land boundaries.

Since the County uses the Assessor's maps to determine if a property qualifies for division, or for entry into a tax program, some properties fall a tad short due to the new improved maps that state the actual size of a property, as opposed to the "adjusted" size.

According to the Assessor's office there may be 100 or more properties that have the potential to be divided if they are treated as they once were; but the Assessor's staff told the County Council that it is unlikely that all of the potential divisions would take place, even if the county were to make a policy decision to allow the newly described properties, to be treated as they once would have been; that is, if a property that was intended to be 5.00 acres is in fact 4.94; which is an actual example highlighted by Deputy Prosecutor Karen Vedder in a memo to the Director Community Development & Planning, Ron Henrickson.

So what now? Nothing so far. In a Council session on Tuesday, Councilman Ranker correctly pointed out that the former Board of County Commissioners were well aware of the conflict, and Director Henrickson said that his department has also been aware of the ongoing problem, but that it was a past policy decision to not change the current regulations, and if the Council wishes to do so, they could begin a process to make the necessary changes to address the conflict.

The Vedder memo summed up the matter by stating "Is it the County's intent to honor the assumed acreages that correspond to the portion of a section of land described as an aliquot parcel?". Or, does the County wish to continue its present approach of using a round number figure to set land division regulations?. County Administrator David Goldsmith said this is a policy decision the Council has to make, and that he was researching the issue to aid the Council in making a decision as to how to proceed, or not, as they so choose.