Our firm has been performing boundary surveys in New York State for over twenty five (25) years. In 1979 the firms name was Rowe, Woodin and Parsons Professional Land Surveyors until the year 2000 when the name changed to Kaatskill Mountain Surveyors, LLP with still two of the original partners Douglas S. Woodin, L.S. and Richard E. Parsons, L.S. and a new partner Richard G. Braun, L.S.

Some interesting surveying projects are as follows... A boundary survey performed for James C. Vandenberg in the Town of Bovina, County of Delaware proved to have a discrepancy between the record call of the distances and the call for the stonewall being the lot line. The deeds called for a stonewall on lands of Clifton Ripperger to be the lot line and then stated “turn right easterly up the hill along the centerline of Calhoun Hill Road”. The assumption of this wall being the lot line was erroneous, therefore confusing Vandenberg. Vandenberg knowing the true location of the lot line believed he owned to the correct lot line being a different stonewall. The actual lot line was approximately 350 feet easterly of the stonewall location called for in the deed to be the lot line. The record distances in the deeds verses

the measured distances in the field along the centerline of the road help verify that the location of the property corner falls near the stonewall called for but does not verify the call for the lot line. In conclusion whoever prepared the original descriptions knew where they wanted the corner by the distance calls but did not know where the actual lot line was. A new description was prepared and a new map was filed in the Delaware County Clerk’s Office. [Another survey of 235 acres performed for Leonord Reflinger in the Town of Andes, County of Delaware also had a lot line discrepancy. We had surveyed numerous parcels of land in the adjoining Wolf Hollow valley to the north of Reflinger land.

With our in house GPS capabilities we were able to extend the existing survey control from Wolf Hollow to Bussey Hollow where Reflingers land was and keep it in the same coordinate sytem through translation. Due to extended locations of the lot line from our previous Wolf Hollow surveys we found a discrepancy on the location of the lot line on a previous survey of Reflingers land. We then proceeded to extend proof lines to the Northwest and Southeast to locate additional evidence of the lot line by the use of GPS. This discrepancy varied from 52 feet difference at the northeast corner of the property to 135 feet difference at the northwest corner of the property. If it wasn’t for the previous surveys and our capabilities to extend the control and proof lines by GPS this error by the previous survey may have not have been detected.

The partners of the firm include:

* Douglas S. Woodin, L.S. 1977 License No. 49243

* Richard E. Parsons, L.S. 1978 License No. 49317

* Richard G. Braun, L.S. 2000 License No. 050393

 

[The NYSDEC, Region 3 hired our firm as consultants to survey a 108 acre parcel of land in the Town of Lumberland, County of Sullivan. There was a discrepancy between some of the existing monumentation along the lot line and the actual location of the lot line. Through reconnaissance additional monumentation was found well beyond the limits of our survey on Great Lot Line 30 &31 and Great Lot Line 31 & 32 and also along the Minisink Patent Line. With the permission of the NYSDEC we were able to locate all these monuments by our GPS from the existing GPS control established by the NYSDEC for this project. With these additional monuments we were able to reconstruct the Great Lot Lines and Minisink Patent Line verifying that some of the existing monumentation was not correct. We then proceeded to reconstruct the NYSDE parcel, monument the corners and blaze and paint the lines.

Our firm was one of the original users of GPS in the catskill mountain region. The partners of the firm have attended seminars and week long work shops for the basic to advanced usage of GPS and Real Time Training. The training sessions were presented by Leica Geosystems, Ltd. Personnel that have also taught GPS at numerous New York State Survey Conferences. The training sessions were located in Albany, Syracuse, Utica, Binghamton, Ottawa and Toronto. Two of our firms employees have also received the Basic GPS Training Course. Our expertise has ranged from completing an entire GPS control network for Cayuga County to control networks for the NYSDOT, NYSDEC, NYCDEP, USDA, OGS, NYSPA, Stewart Air Base, navigation towers for the US Coast Guard, cell tower sites, windmill sites, Columbia Gas Line from Erie, PA. To Rockland County and numerous individual clients for surveys and engineering projects. We have had experience using all three zones in New York States Transverse Mercator Projection and Long Islands Lambert Projection and are very familiar with the NEW YORK STATE HIGH ACCURACY REFERENCE NETWORK (HARN). The majority of our work has been published in NAD 83(96adj.) for horizontal and NAVD 88 (Geoid 99) for vertical. We have also been requested to translate our work to NAD 27 and NGVD 29 and also the UTM system.
Kaatskill Mountain Surveyors, LLP automated to AUTOCAD drawings in the fall of the year 1992 and have continued to update from AUTOCAD version 10 to the present AUTOCAD R16. All computations and mapping are done with Land Development 2005, this includeds all boundary surveys, sub-divisions, right of way surveys and DTM surveys. All field information is collected in our field data collectors and directly downloaded to a P.C. After the proper traverse closures and adjustments have been made the X,Y,Z coordinates are imported into a drawing. The key staff AUTOCAD users are Richard G. Braun L.S. and Douglas S. Woodin L.S. They analyze the information imported from the field along with the deed plots that have been reduced to grid distances, if required to determine the location of the property lines. All the important data has been assigned its own layer such as: traverse, monuments, utilities, polyline closure, labels, deed plots, calculations, etc. The final mapping is checked by a licensed land surveyor other then the one who performed the original calculations, this gives a second opinion and checks on all information relative to the evidence found and the deed information.