Class Descriptions
Center Stage - A Workshop on Public Speaking and the Tools to Succeed (half day)
In both professional mode and private citizen mode, we are often called upon, sometimes pushed and shoved, to speak in front of a group. Whether calm before a crowd or panicky talking in a meeting of three, knowing what works for us individually is important in helping us appear calm and competent even when that is not how we are feeling, and improves our effectiveness when we are sure of ourselves. During this interactive session, participants will be asked to do just that: participate to experiment with vocal, physical, and visual techniques in a variety of scenarios testing our communications skills, whether for conducting more efficient meetings or discussing a work project with a colleague. We will include organizing thoughts, body language, choosing and using audio-visual aids.
Disputes Between Adjoining Landowners (half day)
A half-day session on the ins and outs of boundary disputes between adjoiners and the role the professional surveyor should play in those disputes. Surveyors often find there is more than one opinion as to the location of boundary lines between adjoiners. Disagreements and their legally prescribed resolutions are discussed, including adverse possession, quiet title actions, estoppel, boundary line commissions, and agreements.
Documentation: Self Defense for the Surveying Professional (half day)
We can reduce our risks as professionals by following common sense and sound business practices seasoned with knowledge of the law. Documenting our activities makes both business and legal sense.
Contractual law, rules of evidence, and pertinent statutes are used as examples in this discussion of forms of documentation and the protection they supply us.
Elevation Certificates: Update 2009 (half day) NEW CLASS
A new version of the Elevation Certificate effectively replaces the old version in February 2009 with a number of modifications. It incorporates changes that further distinguish between the surveyor’s role in floodplain management and that of the municipal official. New building diagrams have been added. The instructions have been rewritten to clarify the varied uses of the form. And there is more.
If you are already familiar with the Elevation Certificate, this class will bring you up to date with the changes, section by section, taught by a member of the work group updating the Elevation Certificate. If you are new to Elevation Certificates, the class will provide enough information to get you started in completing them. We will point out what is new while tying the form back to its roots in the National Flood Insurance Program, including discussion of Base Flood Elevations and several sample problems to practice completion of the form under a variety of circumstances.
Participants will learn:
- The various uses of the form and how those uses are reflected in form completion
- How the form has changed from previous versions
- The impact of form changes on surveying work associated with the Elevation Certificate
Topics covered:
- Variety of uses of the Elevation Certificate
- Terminology and abbreviations associated with the Elevation Certificate and its uses
- Overview of changes in 2009 Elevation Certificate, section by section
- Relevant Technical Bulletins and other guidance
- Sources of Base Flood Elevations in Detailed and Approximate flood zones
- Grandfathering and Advisory Base Flood Elevations: definitions and uses
FEMA Flood Insurance Mapping Issues (half day)
(Note: All floodplain management classes can be customized to your group's needs, and can be expanded to include a full day of introductory and advanced material.)
A four-hour introduction to the National Flood Insurance Program, taught by a surveyor who is also a certified floodplain manager and served on the first Technical Mapping Advisory Council to FEMA. Includes:
- Terms and background of floodplain management (floodplain,
floodway, factors affecting flooding, "100-year" flood, flood
management approaches, agencies with floodplain management
jurisdiction)
- National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) history and development,
mitigation and Map Modernization
- NFIP regulations: lenders' compliance and insurance issues
- Map development, restudies, and updates
- Letters of Map Amendment and Letters of Map Revision: contrast and processes
- Elevation Certificates and MT forms: proper completion and use in
map updates
- Determining Base Flood Elevations
- Resources and publications for surveyors
Floodplain Development: Technical Guidance (half day)
(Note: All floodplain management classes can be customized to your group's needs, and can be expanded to include a full day of introductory and advanced material.)
FEMA provides technical assistance and publishes technical bulletins to assist those who develop floodplains. Surveyors should understand the construction guidelines for National Flood Insurance Program compliance, as this helps us serve our clients while assuring we properly complete Elevation Certificates. During this session we will discuss mitigation concepts and review FEMA's views on filling floodplains, "reasonably safe" floodplain construction, flood venting, and erosion hazards. A practical resource guide will be included in the handout.
Highlights:
- NFIP objectives
- Concept of mitigation
- Multiple purposes of Elevation Certificate
- Dry versus wet flood proofing
- Technical Bulletin 10-01: Fill in or near Special Flood Hazard Areas
- Technical Bulletin 1-93: Openings in Foundation Walls
- Technical Bulletin 9-99: Breakaway walls below elevated coastal buildings
- Technical Bulletin 5-93: Free-of-obstruction requirements
- Technical Bulletin 6-93: Below-grade parking requirements
- Relation of guidelines to completion of Elevation Certificate
- Coastal erosion, riverine erosion, and uncertain flow paths
Floodplain Management Customized Classes (2 to 16 hours)
All floodplain management classes can be customized to your group's needs, and can be expanded to include a full day of introductory and advanced material. Past audiences for whom special programs have been created include surveyors, citizen groups, environmental groups, K-12 science classes, university design field students, and community officials.
Programs can introduce the characteristics of watersheds or delve into detailed regulatory aspects of floodplain management. Hands-on exercises in completing forms and field exercises have been included in previous presentations. Write or call to discuss your group's needs.
Highways, Byways, and Private Roads (half day)
Location or relocation, free or restricted access, centerline or sideline: all of these aspects of roads affect the work of both boundary and construction surveyors. After a brief history of roads and road building in the US, we will investigate the creation of public and private terrestrial passage, the entities that control them, the rights of abutting owners, and the extinguishing of those same corridors for transportation.
- A brief history of road development in the US
- Definitions of terms related to roads: highway, public road, private road, abandonment, vacation, reservation, exception, necessity, convenience
- 5th and 14th Amendment rights, state constitutional rights for "just compensation"
- Federal and state statutory definitions and agency regulations affecting roads and highways
- Common law and statutory law applications in court cases
- Agency contact list
This half-day course is meant for either intermediate or advanced audiences. The objective of the program is to include participants in debate about practical application of the legal aspects of land acquisition, road location and width, and use of roads, whether those roads are public or private.
Legal Research Basics (half day, or hands–on full day)
This program teaches the basics of doing your own legal research in a law library or on the Internet. The practice of every design professional (engineer, surveyor, planner, or architect) is intimately tied to the law. To begin with, the very scope of legal and proper practice is defined by statute in each of the individual states. There is no better way to be sure one is doing all that is permitted by law and avoiding all that would constitute malpractice or negligence than to find and read the laws defining practice and misconduct.
Secondly, we are involved in the legal bond between client and professional known as the contract. Statutes, codes, and case law clarify what should be in a contract to make it legally binding, and we can learn by the mistakes of others drawn into court battles how best to avoid pitfalls.
Finally, we may be called to court ourselves, either as defendant, as professional witness, or as expert witness. It is our responsibility as experts to guide attorneys to the most useful laws and cases, and to suggest lines of questioning to them that may assist in drawing out the facts of a case.
This program is a half day session when presented in conference setting, but can be extended to a full day when held in a location allowing for hands–on practice, such as a law library or computer lab with Internet connection. When held in a room with wireless Internet connection, attendees must bring their own laptops equipped with ethernet cards to participate in the hands–on exercises.
Ownership versus Possession (half day)
Ownership of land consists of a bundle of rights that include use and possession. However, mere use or possession of land under certain circumstances may ripen into rights that can cast doubt on the true ownership. When do claims for the right to use or possess land create a claim of title, and when do they only create a right to continued use? We will investigate the various legal claims to land, the evidence supporting these claims, and the surveyor's responsibility to report field or record evidence of such claims.
Record Research: Paper versus Ground Truth (half day)
What does the record say as compared to what is actually on the ground? Title searchers and surveyors both have an interest in public records relating to particular properties. However, the same documents may have different significance to each of these professionals. The most current recorded document does not always accurately describe the property on the ground. But sometimes the written record can reveal clues about additional evidence that we should be seeking out.
Using real-life examples, we will explore difficulties with chains of title, what physical and record calls us about the history and location of a property and its markers, and how to better preserve the evidence in our own written descriptions.
Rights and Responsibilities in the Lands of Others: The Effect of Easements on Surveyors' Work (half day)
Easements are rights given to one party to use the land of someone else. Both sides have certain rights to be protected as well as responsibilities to preserve the existence and usefulness of the easement. The Land Surveyor is often asked to determine the location of easement rights on the ground, based upon a written description, but sometimes an inspection of the property reveals uses not publicly recorded. What makes an easement an easement, when does an easement cease to exist, and how do easement rights affect land use? What is the Land Surveyor's responsibility in reporting recorded or unrecorded land use?
Discussion will include the definition of an easement, creation and termination of easements, dominant and servient estates, and a sampling of pertinent state statutes and case law.
To Accept or Not To Accept...That is the Question (half day)
(This is the course originally created with and co-presented with Dennis Mouland.)
The fundamental reason surveyors are in a regulated profession is because of one specific decision we make each time we do a boundary survey.....what to do with the lack or over-abundance of corner evidence. A fast-moving course on the most difficult question in the profession. Covers statutory, administrative, and case law on the subject. Audience participation is encouraged to help create a "checklist" of issues to be considered. Several real-world scenarios are discussed in detail.
Tracking the Railroads (half day or full day)
Railroads have played a major part in the settlement and development of the United States. The importance of these bands of steel uniting the country was underscored by the powers granted to railroad companies to acquire land rights in whatever way necessary, whether by grant, in fee, or as easements. Surveyors involved with the original location and layout of the rails had a much easier time of it than we do today, as we try to recreate not only original configuration of rails and parcels, but also what kinds of rights the railroad companies may have had in the land beneath their tracks. We will discuss historical, legal, and practical aspects of the problems we face today as we unravel the railroad puzzle.
- General history of railroad development
Time frames of RR development
Importance of RR development (military, economy, social)
- Land acquisition (acts of Congress, grants, fee title, easements)
Laying out the rails (curve definitions, RR terminology)
- Abandonment (defining abandonment, reversionary rights, Rails to Trails)
- Railroad research
Note: A half day program concentrating primarily on Rails to Trails is also available.
Utilities, Public and Otherwise (half day)
The word "utility" implies usefulness to the public, but surveyors may find that what is considered a "utility" in one place is not always a utility in another jurisdiction. The distinction between regulated and unregulated utilities defines the legal rights and protections that these utilities may have, or the restrictions that they may be "subject to". The distinction also affects how surveyors access or interpret information about the location of those utilities. The statutes and case law included in this class are intended to help those who plan or stake out new or relocated utility facilities, or recover existing utility locations in the field.
- What is the difference between a regulated utility and an unregulated utility?
- What are the rights of regulated and unregulated utilities, particularly regarding the purchase, lease, or condemnation of property? How does this affect record and locational research?
- Blanket and specific individual easements
- What are the responsibilities of utilities to the public and to the servient estate?
- Who “wins” when there is a conflict between utilities?
Wendy Lathrop is licensed as a Professional Land Surveyor in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, and as a Professional Planner in New Jersey. She holds a Master's degree in Environmental Policy, and has been involved in surveying since 1974 in projects ranging from construction to boundary to environmental land use disputes. Wendy is also a Certified Floodplain Manager through the