Resources to locate Private property vs the Public Right-of-Way
Bryan Wilson
I'm passing along information that I feel is relevant for both the upcoming political season & Denver Deserves Sidewalks.
In short, many property owners in Denver seem to be confused by where their property ends & the Public Right-of-Way begins. So, I'm sharing information I obtained from the Denver City Surveyor, redacting private information. Hopefully, this helps to provide some needed clarity to property owners.
On Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 3:37 PM Pettit, Ralph - DOTI CE0381 City Surveyor <Ralph....@denvergov.org> wrote:
Bryan,
Thanks for all your insightful questions. I have some direct answers and some indirect answers that I hope will help you here now and in your future inquiries. In the interest of equity, we hold to a pretty strict time allocation of one hour of free research for our citizens to balance service with cost and provide excellent uniform results to all. Therefore, I was able to research the remainder of property right of way inquiries as follows:
Address Flowline to right of way distance
---[Redacted]-------- 15’
---[Redacted]-------- 15’
---[Redacted]-------- 15’
---[Redacted]-------- 15’
---[Redacted]-------- 15’
---[Redacted]-------- 8.8’
This used up the hour of research plus a little, but we’ll call it good. Below are some links to tools that will help you help yourself to some of the tools we use to determine right of way. I give you these with a few very large cautionary thoughts. We have 15 data sets available to us for research to determine right of way by record. Even with all this information, and the professional training and licensure to interpret it, we still sometimes come up with an indeterminable result requiring field surveys to resolve. This is why we do not survey private property. I strongly advise you find a survey professional to assist you in determining the property lines even after you do your own research. The records available below are up to 160 years old and have undergone multiple iterative revisions as property is subdivided and re-subdivided. Rights of way are vacated and/or added to by dedication increasing or decreasing their width. Streets are repaved and curbs removed or added where they did not previously exist. None of this information will appear on any single document but rather requires interpreting those 15 data sets, 160 years of history, and high resolution ortho photogrammetry, and more than 2 million paper records.
If this sounds challenging it is because it is. We hold ourselves to the same standard we require of private developers in that all public projects are preceded by a current survey of the impacted area to ensure our work remains within the right of way. Here are the links I promised:
Our home page with many research tools: Right-of-Way Survey - City and County of Denver (denvergov.org)
Denver Maps site: Denver Maps - Real Property (denvergov.org) Here you can find tools to other departments and links to the ¼ maps referenced in our first email.
Open Data Catalog: Open Data Catalog (arcgis.com) If you had GIS or CAD software.
Please let me know if you have any trouble with these tools.
Thanks,
Ralph Pettit, PLS | City Surveyor
City & County of Denver
Department of Transportation & Infrastructure | Survey
Pronouns | He/Him/His
Mobile: 720-400-3723 | Office: 720-865-3031
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