The City of Dallas’ Development Services Department (DSD) held a Lunch-N-Learn training session on Thursday detailing submission requirements, processing guidelines, and checklists for the City’s subdivision platting process.
The training session was hosted by Mohammad H. Bordbar, a senior planner with DSD, and John Stepp, a registered professional land surveyor for the City of Dallas Survey Group.
A plat is the graphic representation of one or more lots or tracks of land or subdivisions. Platting is the process by which a parcel of property is subdivided into legal lots or tracts of land.
The platting process in Dallas plays an essential role in the City’s development and growth by establishing a legal building site, which is generally required before a building permit or certificate of occupancy can be issued.
When it comes to plat surveys, mistakes are often made by applicants. Depending on the severity of the error, a building permit can take longer to issue. According to Stepp, the most common platting process mistakes on applications are logging the wrong submission date, improper scaling, inaccurate water and wastewater locations, and incorrect descriptions.
“Not all projects are the same, with some projects taking much longer to approve. That is why it is so important for applicants to get things right the first time around,” Thuc Pham, a member of Dallas’ land development team, said during a previous Lunch-N-Learn training session attended by The Dallas Express.
Dallas is well known for delays in its development process. Many in the building community have longed for a more intuitive and speedy permitting process — one that does not lead to extra project costs because of delays, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
In fact, burdensome delays and an extensive multi-year backlog of building permits nearly cost Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax his job in 2022.
State law requires that all plats must be acted on within 30 days of their acceptance. Certified land surveyors review plats in Dallas to ensure design plans comply with the standards of the City’s development code, long-term plans, and engineering standards, as well as the requirements of other agencies.
There are two steps to the platting process: preliminary plat approval and final plat approval — both of which demand efficient and timely management to ensure the development process runs smoothly, according to Bordbar.
The platting process in Dallas contains a 42-item checklist that requires review and endorsement from a licensed surveyor before receiving approval from the City.
Stepp said everything needs to be clear for the reviewer when a plat is submitted to the City.
“Plats must be quickly legible and able to communicate all necessary information,” he said. “It shouldn’t be a game where you try to figure out where the easement sign is. Instead, the object of the game is to communicate quickly and effectively.”
For a complete list of platting requirements and procedures, click here.