Land Surveying

Land surveying is the professional science of measuring, mapping, and legally defining the spatial characteristics of land — including property boundaries, elevations, improvements, easements, and their relationships to adjacent parcels and public rights-of-way. In Texas, the Texas Professional Land Surveying Practices Act (Chapter 1071, Texas Occupations Code) requires that all of the following be performed by or under the direct supervision of a Texas Registered Professional Land Surveyor (RPLS):

• Boundary surveys determining or retracing property lines
• Subdivision plats dividing land into lots and blocks
• ALTA/NSPS Land Title Surveys for commercial real estate transactions
• Right-of-way surveys for public roads, utilities, and infrastructure
• Any survey work on which a licensed surveyor’s professional seal is placed

Common triggers requiring a licensed survey in Texas include: buying or selling property (especially commercial), applying for a development permit, subdividing land, resolving a boundary dispute, obtaining a construction loan, complying with FEMA floodplain requirements, and acquiring right-of-way for public infrastructure.

GGE’s land surveying is performed by Richard Solis, R.P.L.S. — Texas-licensed since 1987 — with Gustavo Gonzalez, P.E. providing overall project management and quality oversight. Every deliverable is RPLS-sealed and meets TBPLS minimum standards.

These are the two most commonly confused survey types, and they answer entirely different questions about a property.

A boundary survey answers: where exactly do my legal property lines fall? It locates and documents the boundaries of a parcel — finding and setting corner monuments, measuring dimensions, reconciling field evidence with recorded deeds and adjacent surveys, and identifying encroachments and easements. The deliverable is an RPLS-sealed plat and, if needed, a metes-and-bounds legal description. It is required for real estate transactions, permit applications, and boundary disputes. It does not tell you anything about the physical terrain, existing improvements, or elevations on the property.

A topographic survey answers: what does the land physically look like? It captures the three-dimensional shape of the existing terrain — elevations, contour lines, drainage flow directions, existing structures, above-ground utilities, trees, paved surfaces, and other features. It does not establish legal boundaries. It is the required input for civil engineering design: without an accurate topographic survey, a civil engineer cannot design drainage, grading, roadways, or site utilities.

Many development projects require both — the boundary survey establishes the legal limits within which design must stay, and the topographic survey provides the existing conditions data the civil engineer needs to design the project inside those limits.

GGE frequently delivers boundary and topographic surveys together as a combined scope — with both surveys performed at the same time by the same crew, saving mobilization costs and accelerating the schedule compared to sequential separate scopes.

An ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey is the highest and most comprehensive survey standard in the United States — prepared to the joint Minimum Standard Detail Requirements established by the American Land Title Association and the National Society of Professional Surveyors. Unlike a standard boundary survey, an ALTA/NSPS survey addresses the full range of matters that a title company and lender need to insure a commercial real estate transaction, including:

• All boundary lines and corner monuments with bearings, distances, and closure
• All improvements on the property — buildings, parking, driveways, fencing
• All easements of record, plotted from legal descriptions
• Access points and rights of access to public roads
• Zoning classification, parking ratios, and setbacks (if table A items selected)
• Evidence of utility service locations and above-ground utility features
• Encroachments by or onto the subject property

ALTA/NSPS surveys are typically required by lenders and title companies as a condition of commercial property purchase, refinancing, or construction loan funding. They may also be required for long-term ground leases, portfolio acquisitions, and certain government-funded development projects.

GGE performed an ALTA/NSPS survey for the Abbas Subdivision commercial development — a 10-acre site in a FEMA floodplain — where the ALTA survey was combined with high-density topographic data collection for HEC-RAS hydraulic modeling in a single mobilization.

Construction staking — also called construction layout or setting out — is the process of translating the engineer’s approved design drawings from paper coordinates into physical marks and stakes on the ground. Without construction staking, a contractor does not know the precise location and elevation at which to build each element of the project.

For a typical civil or structural project, construction staking establishes:

• Horizontal alignment — where roads, pipelines, buildings, and other improvements are positioned in plan
• Vertical grade — the elevations at which improvements must be built to match the approved drainage, pavement, and utility design
• Structure locations — building corners, foundation lines, column centerlines, and utility connection points
• Offset stakes — stakes set at a measured offset from the actual construction line so they survive earth-moving operations

In Texas, construction staking for permitted improvements must be performed by or under the supervision of a licensed RPLS. This is not merely a regulatory requirement — it is a practical necessity for quality assurance, since imprecise staking is a leading cause of construction defects, permit non-conformance, and costly rework discovered during inspections.

GGE’s construction staking is coordinated directly with our civil and structural engineering team — when we designed the project, our surveyors stake from the same coordinate files used to produce the permit drawings, eliminating the translation errors that occur when a separate survey firm interprets someone else’s design data.

GGE is the only firm in the San Antonio market that delivers land surveying, civil engineering, and structural engineering under a single project manager, a single contract, and a single invoice. The practical advantages of this model are significant and compound at every stage of a development project:

• Survey field data flows directly into the civil engineer’s AutoCAD Civil 3D design file — in the same coordinate system, without a format conversion or transmittal cycle between firms
• Topographic data collected by the surveyor is immediately available for drainage design, grading, and site development — often the same week as field collection
• Structural foundation design is coordinated with civil grading and site utility plans within the same project team — preventing the conflicts that arise when structural and civil drawings are prepared independently
• Construction staking is performed from the same design coordinate files used by the civil engineer — eliminating the interpretation errors that occur when a separate survey firm works from a different firm’s drawings
• As-built documentation at project closeout is consistent across all disciplines, produced in the same coordinate system as the original survey and design

For clients pursuing publicly funded projects, GGE’s HUB certification as prime contractor provides direct diversity credit on every contract — including the surveying scope — without the administrative burden of managing a separate certified subconsultant invoice and reporting relationship.

On GGE’s ROC USA Manufactured Home Community project — a 54-unit bond-funded infrastructure renovation — the surveying team provided comprehensive topographic and boundary surveys, as-built documentation, and construction control that flowed seamlessly into the civil engineering design, all under one $88,000 GGE contract delivered on schedule and within budget.