UNIT 4: LAND RECORDS

Written by Ken Russell, Houston Community College

Context

Since land records have historical significance, they obviously predate the computer era. To meet their legal obligations, and to hold down their costs, all levels of government are looking at ways to better computerize their operations. The maintenance and use by the public of land records is a major cost item for governmental entities.

The records include a detailed description of the property, structures built upon it, ownership, and many other entities. A map is always part of the record. However, these maps may well be maintained separately from the text records.

In the United States, the normal governmental entity maintaining the extensive land records is the county. Land records are usually located in the county courthouse in a register of legal documents called a deed book. Deed books list the property description, seller and buyer, and other information which may include the price. Other entities within the county such as cities or school districts may maintain separate records. These records are public, not confidential, documents.

Commercial and residential development has been going on for several years in a formerly rural area north of the city. The city planning department has proposed annexing this area next year. You are to prepare a series of maps and associated records showing possible areas to annex. The report will include the size of the area, the population, the type and value of all development. It should also include areas not yet developed as well as areas, which will not be taxed, such as parks and schools and water ways. The city planners need to be able to estimate both the costs and the revenues from any proposed annexation.

Learning Outcomes

Preparatory Units

Recommended:

Awareness

Learning objectives:

1. Locate the source of land records
2. Determine the format of the data (raster or vector, GIS software format)
3. Identify the available metadata
4. Copy the required data

• Land records
• Deed book
• Raster data
• Vector data
• Metadata

Competency

Learning Objectives:

1. Determine the format of the maps.
2. Look at the scale of a map and choose a scale for your report.
3. Compare projections of maps to a reference map.
4. Plan the data capture.

• Scale
• Projection

• One ofthe questions you obviously must answer is how up to date is your information. The database is updated every two weeks and the last date is given. The maps are pdf format, in other words picture files which cannot be updated, only replaced. Nothing in the metadata mentions updating them. Should you call your colleague at the Appraisal District?
  

• The text is designed to be read at a scale of 1" = 200. If you use this scale, your map will be huge. If you go to a smaller scale, the text will vanish. A possible scale for your work is 1" = 1000.
  

• This map is a typical surveyors plot. It does not have a projection. How to project it or to combine it with other projected maps are subjects for other units. The situation you are looking at is typical of land records. Your city map may or may not have a projection.
  

• Look at the map for quality control. It says 1" = 200. Use a ruler to check some simple lot lines. Look at the south property line for 2807 Valley Way Drive. It says, to a precision of two decimal points, that the lot line is over 1200 feet long! These dimensions shown are not dimensions in reality, they are just numbers typed into a graphics file. For your assigned project, however, this does not matter. For many other projects, such as utility layouts, it certainly will matter.
  

• Is it useful to you to use these detailed property maps as they are available on-line. More likely, you need to contact the appraisal district, now that you know what is available, and ask about their original formats. What you really need are the maps from which the on-line site was constructed.
  

Mastery

Learning Objectives:

1. Combine information to produce the necessary maps
2. Provide a report of property values with the map

Vocabulary:

• Appraised value

Task List:

• Each piece of property on your map has an appraised value in the database. You need to generate a summary of property values for each possible annexation. There is no report generator available, especially since the map is not tied back to the database.

• Appraised values are continually changing, and are only estimates anyway. For the purposes of deciding the value of an area, they do not need to be perfectly accurate. Annexations are based upon developed areas and not based upon actual geography. You need to develop your mapping options based upon some concept such as neighborhood.

• This information is available separately from the city or the county data. Unfortunately this will mean yet another data format. In this case at least two sources provide property values summarized by neighborhood. One is a commercial source http://www.baca.com , the other is a service of the local newspaper http://www.houstonchronicle.com/homefront.

• Your detailed property maps now need to be generalized by neighborhood. Average property values can then be established to estimate tax revenues. Undeveloped properties can also be projected as to when they become tax paying entities.

Follow-up Units

Resources