Difference between revisions of "Easement"

This is a replacement of the easements feature class. It stores all easements as well as right of way dedications.

Fields[edit]

DateEdited - date of last edit to the feature
EasementType1, EasementType2, EasementType3, EasementType4, EasementType5 - Codes for the easement purposes such as Utility -> UTIL, Drainage -> DRAIN. To find all easements with a given type you need to select against all of the fields.
Description - Full text of the easement types. An easement with types "ACCESS", "FIRE", and "UTIL" could have the description "Public Access, Firelane & Public Utility".
DateFiled - Date the document was filed.
DocumentNumber - City's code for the document, often looks like "A1234-567". The source and use of this code is an enigma, so I've been putting county clerk document numbers in this field.
InstrumentNumber - County clerk's document number, good for finding the document. You also need to know the year since this number starts over each year
Volume, Page - For looking up the document. For plats with a "cabinet"/page, Volume will be 'Cab X'
Grantor, Grantee - The people giving up and receiving the easement rights.
DocumentType - Type of document that describes the easement, e.g. EASEMENT, PLAT, WARRANTY DEED.

Types[edit]

Common[edit]

ABAND - Abandoned easements. These should be moved to the AbandonedEasements feature class, which is also in the RealEstate dataset.
ACCESS - Sometimes attributed as INGRESS and EGRESS depending on how the legal document labels it.
COMM - Communications. Not very common.
DETEN - Water Detention, usually used in conjunction with DRAIN
DME - Denton Municipal Electric
DRAIN - Water Drainage
DUE - Combination Drainage and Utility, because that combo is very common
ELEC - Many UTIL easements are probably for electricity, but some are explicit about it
FIRE - Firelane, typically is also an ACCESS easement
GAS - For gas lines
INGRESS - Always accompanied by EGRESS, considering changing these to ACCESS
NO - When you can't verify the easement exists, but don't want to delete it for whatever reason
PUE - Public Utility Easement, same as UTIL but "public". These can be changed to UTIL and only include the public distinction in the description.
ROW - Right of Way dedications. These are not technically easements, but there is currently no better place to store them.
SEWER - Sanitary Sewer
SIDEWK - Sidewalk
UTIL - Utilities
WATER - Water lines

Less Common[edit]

ENVIRO - environmental inspection, only a few, all to First State Bank
FENCE
FLOOD - Floodplain
GUY - Guy wires for poles/towers
HYDRNT - Fire hydrants, presumably
LAND - Landscape
LIGHT - Street Light (for power line leading to light)
MAINT - Too generic, probably have a more specific type if you can find the documentation
PED - Pedestrian
PIPE - Pipeline
SIGN
SLOPE
SWB - unknown
TREE - Tree preservation area
VIS - Visibility
WALL - Wall Maintenance

Rare[edit]

CONSRV - only 1, not sure what I could merge it with
GREEN - not sure about this one
LIFTST - No clue what it is; only 1
PARK - Parking, only 1
PLANE - Air traffic

Finding documents[edit]

You can search the County Clerk's filings at http://216.60.44.147/TX/Denton/default.aspx
If you have a document number or volume/page numbers, use Document search or Volume Search.
To find new easements, do a date range search and select "EASEMENT" for type in the Advanced search options. Then you have to manually look through the results for ones in Denton, since the search results will be for all of Denton County.

Easements that were filed between 3-29-2014 and 3-18-2015 have been entered. To expand this range, you would do a search starting 3-19-15 and ending a few weeks later. As you enter the easements you find in to GIS, keep track of your place. Update the dates in this paragraph from time to time. If you catch up to present day, start working backwards from 3-28-2014.

Drawing[edit]

A common feature of easements is that they will run along the edge of parcels and have a certain width. To create a section of easement along a straight edge, first create the line along the parcel edge, then press ctrl+f to open the Deflection Angle dialog and enter "90" to do a right-angle turn. Then press ctrl+L to open the length dialog and enter the width of the easement. Do ctrl+f and "90" to create the third side, parallel to the first. Repeat this to create a feature for each different edge (shown in first image), then merge them all together (second image). Convex corners will merge correctly, for concave corners you will need to overshoot and then clean things up a bit (delete the two selected vertices in the second image).

To draw curves, use the End Point Arc Segment tool, place the first and second points, then place the mouse on the middle of the curve and press 'r' to open the Radius dialog, as shown in the first image below. This tells you the radius of one side of the curve. Next, place the start and end points for the other side of the curve, then press 'r' again and enter the previous radius value +/- the width of the easement. So in this example, add 10 to 272.393. If the curve was convex, you would subtract 10 instead. In this example, the curve is conveniently book-ended by two straight segments, which provide the start and end points for the inside of the curve. ctrl+f, "90", ctrl+l, "width" works with curves too, for when things are not so convenient.

Other useful editing tools are Intersection, Reshape Feature, Cut Polygons (reshape multiple polygons, delete the excess), Replace Geometry (when an attributed feature already exists but the geometry is bad), and the Traverse tool for when the easement does not follow parcel edges.

If you enter the easements to spec and they don't fit the parcels, then the parcels in question may be a good candidate for redrawing.