Easements in the Fabric

[NickKenczka]

Hey all,

Just wondering who is managing easements (or thinking about it) inside of a fabric.  We are trying to set up a workflow for doing this (test fabric for now) and have some questions.  If you are managing easements/Encumbrances inside of the fabric are you doing it as a closed polyline or as polygons?  The geometry type completely changes the workflow for how you incorporate easements into the fabric.  We are testing both, and are finding that if we do it as a polygon, the fabric will not join the polygon to the existing (joined) parcel points or line points, it will only do it do a recognized control point. Has anyone experienced this?  Every data model I've seen does not include easements as part of the fabric so I'm wondering if it is "industry standard" to manage this information outside of the fabric.  Any thoughts/ideas would be greatly helpful.  Thanks!

[ScottOppmann]

Nick -

We've deployed a template on the Local Government Resource Center that will help you organize easements (and other parcel types like subs, lots, PLSS, etc.) in the fabric.  Here is a link to the template: http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=9d5d357e7bf54c27878f3737ade128da.

The key part of this design is a domain called parcel type and a series of layers in the ArcMap editing document derived from it. The parcel type domain allows you to interact with specific parcels (subs, lots, tax parcels and/or easements) and their related attributes in the map.

You may want to track additional information about easements in your model and you can do that with extended attributes on the fabric.

Hope this helps. 

Scott
arcgisteamlocalgov@esri.com

[davidvan_pelt]

The City of Encintas is managing all easements and other encumbrances in the Fabric as Polygons. It is generally working quite well. We have added a few exteded attributes such as Easement width, Recording Number, and a "Grant To" field.

If you have specific questions we could talk or post any specific questions to this forum.

Thanks & Good Luck!

David

[NickKenczka]

The City of Encintas is managing all easements and other encumbrances in the Fabric as Polygons. It is generally working quite well. We have added a few exteded attributes such as Easement width, Recording Number, and a "Grant To" field.

If you have specific questions we could talk or post any specific questions to this forum.

Thanks & Good Luck!

David

Thanks David,

Its great to have the dialogue with other city/county government people who are working with the fabric to manage their land records information.  I do have some follow-up questions for you.  Specifically with easements, how do you guys incorporate an easement that just has the centerline information on the plat? I've tried to use the offset functions in the traverse environment but it doesn't seem to be very consistent.  Is this the purpose for having the width field (I really like that idea)?  Also, how long have you guys been working with the fabric to manage your information.  It doesn't seem as though there are many out there who are using the fabric quite yet, at least in our part of the country. 

Have you guys been running into anything that has been giving you any issues?  We are still in the testing phases and are finding some buggy things with how the fabric stores and saves each 'construction' and then when you re-open the construction the line-points are all missing and it gives you some major errors.  So basically we are still trying to work this whole thing out and any pointers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[davidvan_pelt]

Hi Nick,

We have been using the Fabric since the begining (9.2 sp3 I think it was). We did not migrate any data, we cogo'd everthing in from the source documents.

For centerline easements, we will mark the traverse as 'Unclosed = True' if we don't take the time to build them into a polygon - you are correct, sometime this can be problematic. Having the width provides a way of documenting the width when the polygon is not built out. Width was also added for end user application purposes.

There are bugs for sure!! We work around them the best we can, I would not go into production until Sp 1 is released. There are outstanding issues we need to resolve with ESRI but I'm waiting to get SP1 to see what issues might get cleared up with that first.

Regards, David

[NickKenczka]

David (and all who will listen),

I'm coming accross a very distinct issue with joining parcels (via the construction work flow) into a fabric:

- I complete the platted COGO as to what I believe to be a closed polygon with proper distance and bearing info.

- I then chose the "build and keep current" option to begin the joining process.

- I complete the proper "links" within the new construction job either linking them to some sort of control point or established point already connected to a parcel.

- I then accept or ok those links and the parcel joins to the fabric, (this is where the problem occurs) but the parcel is no longer recognized as a polygon but is only joined as a series of connected lines. Another strange thing is that inside the 'parcels' attribute table there is an actual feature for this new parcel however there is no area calculation. Also I cannot actually delete these lines or even re-open the parcel to unjoin it.

I'm hoping someone has experienced this issue and can provide some guidance. Thanks!

[ChrisBuscaglia]

A couple questions:

Did the parcel close?  In other words, the initial start point (POB) match the end point?

Are you trying to create an un-closed parcel, or a closed loop?

Can you send (attach) the Cadastral XML file for the new parcel?

Thanks

Chris

[NickKenczka]

David,

I was hoping we could speak via a telephone call so that we could possibly discuss some other questions I have regarding how your organization treats easements inside of the fabric. Would you mind sending me the number to your office line? You can reach me at nickk@ci.gillette.wy.us. I would really appreciate a conversation with you. Thanks!

Nick Kenczka
GIS Specialist
City of Gillette, WY

[NickKenczka]

For those who are managing their easement data inside a parcel fabric, I was hoping to find out the work flow you've developed for this information.  We are looking to do the same, however, we are finding it difficult to figure out how to implement the easements without having to do them in short, segments.  Ideally, we would like to make one entire easement polygon for each easement type, in each subdivision and are having difficulty doing so.  Has anyone else run into this problem? 

Another question we've been having is what exactly the best approach to entering in easements would be.  The ESRI help information provides 'some' guidance in the line categories explaining that easements should be dependant lines, but from what I've seen this method will not produce a unique parcel type for extraction from the fabric.  A second method would be to enter in the easements as boundary lines, the issue with this method is that the easements would be used in the fabric adjustments and that is not good, due to easements not being survey level measurements.  Chris do you have any guidance on this?

Thanks!

Nick Kenczka
GIS Specialist
City of Gillette, WY

[ChrisBuscaglia]

Easement are important, if you have all the information for them.  I've found that many tax-assessment shops rarely track them.  The County clerk/recorder would have to store them for easy retrieval and a deed examiner route them to the mapping office.  Easements are easily managed when they are included on new subdivisions and merge and split deed descriptions, but harder when recorded with straight-transfer and other documents.

With that being said, if you have easements and would like them to be included, they are best suited for the "encumbrance" layer as parcels if you use the local government GDB and Parcel Editing template. 

And to answer your question about accuracy...they need to have a low accuracy weighting for the Least-Squares adjustment (Fabric Adjustment or LSA).  I would give them a "6" accuracy, or maybe even a "7".  Accuracy 6 will have little or no influence on the LSA and Accuracy 7 will be excluded completely from any Fabric adjustment.

Hope this helps.

Chris