North Shore City works with surveyors to make TA e-certification tick
North Shore City Council is certifying 100% of survey plans electronically and is happy to share a few tips with surveyors and other councils around the country on how to get the process ticking along.
North Shore engages the services of survey consultant, Gerry Turner, three days a week. Gerry has championed the e-survey and TA e-certification process for the council and focused on some of the problems surveyors were having with their lodgements.
"Most surveyors are very comfortable with e-survey and e-certification," says Gerry. "The more successful ones have set up an e-survey champion in their firm who also deals with councils. I'm proactive too. I get on the phone or email with surveyors when there are issues and we sort it out together."
Gerry says there are some basic issues that can inhibit the completion of e-certification. "Although less experienced staff in survey firms can work in Landonline easily, they may not understand things like complex easements, or omit to complete and attach all the necessary certificates to a package."
Gerry offers the following tips to surveyors to help the process run smoothly:
- If the surveyor is waiting for an RMA 223 certificate to be signed off, it could be that there's no documented request or nothing is registered in the council's Landonline workspace. The surveyor may not have submitted the e-survey - by selecting the 'Notify TA' button in the 'Manage Survey Transaction' screen - or the e-survey cannot be matched with council records.
- Remember to select the 'Complete' button when corrections are made or the dataset is edited or changed, so that all parties are looking at the same package.
- Note that when re-certification is required, a new package has to be generated and submitted.
- Surveyors must enter the council's reference in the TA Reference field under the TA Certification tab in the 'Manage Survey Transaction' screen in Landonline.
- Note that the established practice of requesting the required certifications with a brief explanation as to compliance, via letter or email, is still important and also saves time and costs particularly for more complex transactions.
"Surveyors should try to get as many of the little things right as possible before hitting the 'Send to TLA' button so that we can focus on the significant matters and issue the certificates," Gerry concludes.
For the full article, see North Shore City makes TA e-certification tick in this edition of Landwrap.
New risk-based acceptance framework –Letter to surveyors
LINZ is implementing a new risk-based acceptance process for validating cadastral survey datasets from 1 April 2008 (refer Landwrap articles in January 2008 and November/December 2007).
As advised in January, over the next few days surveyors will receive a letter from LINZ containing their initial individual Surveyor Profile, and information* on the new risk-based acceptance process for CSDs to which the profile relates.
From 1 April, surveyors will be required to follow the new risk-based acceptance process. An additional supporting document will need to be attached to each CSD at the time of lodging, comprising the lodging surveyor's current Surveyor Profile and the Dataset Complexity Profile for the CSD being lodged (a template will be provided on the Landonline website to download from the end of March – refer to March Landwrap).
More information can be found in the e-survey section on the Landonline website:
If you haven't received a letter containing your initial Surveyor Profile by mid March, please email info@linz.govt.nz and include 'Surveyor Profile Query' in the subject line, or ring Customer Support on 0800 ONLINE (0800 665 463).
Resubmission fee waiver lifted
In July 2007, LINZ extended the survey re-submission fee waiver a further six months until 31 March 2008. The waiver was extended to support surveyors as they became familiar with e-survey through the 1 September mandatory date transition period (refer July 2007 Landwrap article Extension to survey re-submission fee waiver).
We wish to advise that as of 1 April 2008, the resubmission fee waiver will no longer apply.
Geodetic activities: 5th Order coordinate changes
Surveyors may have noticed that the coordinates of some 5th Order geodetic marks have changed from when they were first incorporated into NZGD2000. In a typical year, hundreds of 5th Order marks have their coordinates updated by LINZ for a number of reasons.
Categories of 5th Order
The majority of 5th Order coordinates were generated from least squares adjustments using data adopted from NZGD1949 and Old Cadastral Datum (OCD) Standard Traverses. Some of this data is very old, dating from the nineteenth century. The old data were brought in terms of NZGD2000 using connections to 4th Order marks to generate 5th Order coordinates. Marks generated using existing traverse data are shown as '5th Order (traverse)' marks on the map in the Geodetic Database. There are approximately 57,000 of these marks.
Other 5th Order coordinates have been generated by re-surveying existing marks using Global Positioning System (GPS) techniques. These are referred to as '5th Order (GPS)' marks, and all have ellipsoidal heights. Currently, there are around 13,000 such marks.
Problems with 5th Order (traverse) marks
Some characteristics of geodetic traverse networks lead to a number of 5th Order (traverse) marks having poor coordinates. These are:
- Some of the data is not sufficiently accurate (particularly older data observed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries).
- The networks formed often had poor network geometry, due to the requirement for mark intervisibility when the traverse observations were made.
- Problems with geodetic coordinates are sometimes identified through analysis and re-surveys carried out by LINZ. In other cases, a discrepancy is identified by a cadastral surveyor and notified to LINZ through the Cadastral Survey Dataset (CSD) Survey Report or info@linz.govt.nz
Resolving problems with 5th Order (traverse) marks
Coordinate issues are resolved by geodetic re-surveys and/or capture of additional data from CSDs. Once the new data has been incorporated, the network is readjusted and geodetic coordinates in the affected area are updated with the new, more accurate values. These new coordinates are loaded into both Landonline and the Geodetic Database.
Note that these new coordinates for existing 5th Order geodetic marks are not the result of marks physically moving in the ground. Rather, they are the result of higher-quality data being used to produce coordinates that more accurately represent the true position of the mark.
If the geodetic coordinate changes are large, the cadastral data in Landonline may be readjusted in terms of the new geodetic coordinates. In areas where the 5th Order coordinates have been updated, surveyors should find that new CSDs now fit better with the 5th Order control.
How to identify marks with updated coordinates
Marks with updated coordinates can be identified from the 'Mark Details' screen in the Geodetic Database. Click on the 'Historical values' link on the right hand side of the page for the coordinate system for which you want the updated details.
Fig 1: Clicking on the 'Historical values' link, circled in red, displays historical coordinates in terms of Mount Eden Circuit 2000.
This loads a page that contains the coordinate history for the mark. The current, authoritative coordinate is shown in bold.
Fig 2: All coordinates (current and historical) for mark C87H in terms of Mount Eden Circuit 2000.
For further information, email info@linz.govt.nz and put Geodetic in the subject line.
New e-survey tips and hints
The e-survey Tips and Hints on the Landonline website are continually being refined and added to.
The Parcel Type list contains both current and legacy parcel types. Legacy types are required for historic purposes only and should not be used by external users unless advised by LINZ.
Although the list is long, it has been constructed so that the five most commonly used current parcel types are at the top:
A sixth Parcel Type - Accessory Unit - can still be used when capturing unit plans.
Changes are proposed to make parcel types other than the above six non selectable by external users.
Accretion parcels are not spatially captured in Landonline. When in Plan Generation/Define Diagrams/Spatial window, the Select Existing Line tool should be used to bring in the underlying CT boundaries.
Once the CT (arrow) button has been selected, CT lines will highlight red in the Spatial window - use your mouse and hold down the shift key to select all the relevant red lines you require.
Once you have selected all the relevant CT lines, select the CT+ button and these will be added to your diagrams.
In the Layout Sheets, depict the Accretion parcel inside the CT boundary lines with User Added Text showing the words 'Accretion' and, if known, the area.
Erosion parcels are captured spatially in Landonline. When creating the Erosion parcel appellation in the Parcel Detail screen (CSC_S07b), the following correct details must be populated:
Select OK
Select Yes
When you select Yes on this screen, the new Hydro parcel will be added to your Parcel Detail screen as CSC Parcel Id #.
When in Plan Generation/Layout Sheets, hide the CSC Parcel Id label that was created when you were in the Parcel Detail screen, and simply add the words 'Erosion' in User Added Text. The area you captured when you created the Hydro parcel will be shown in the Layout Sheets.
Are you using the e-survey best practice tools and tips?
The new self-help information in the e-survey section is ordered by the experience level of the surveyor - novice, experienced and advanced.
Spanning a wide range of topics, the best practice section includes the tips and hints full index.
The e-survey training resources section has all the links and background on training materials provided by LINZ such as the user guide, computer based training (CBT) DVD and the support available to surveyors.
