Whether you’re planning your new swimming pool construction in Fort Lauderdale, Miami or any other municipality in South Florida, you’ll need to provide a property surveys — also known as real estate surveys, site surveys or boundary surveys — as part of the documents required for you or your pool builder to obtain a building permit.
What is a Property Survey?
A property survey is a detailed mapping of a piece of land conducted by a licensed surveyor. It establishes the precise legal boundaries of a property and ensures, first and foremost, that your swimming pool construction stays within these boundaries and respects certain pre-determined setbacks from these boundaries.
Basic Elements of a Survey
All property surveys should include at least these three basic elements:
- Boundary Lines: Clearly defines the limits of your property. Most municipalities have specific regulations regarding the swimming pool placement. A property survey ensures that our pool plans comply with pool setback requirements, which dictate how far a swimming pool must be from property boundaries. For example, the City of Fort Lauderdale and the City of Hollywood require a minimum pool setback of 5 to 10 feet from property boundaries.
- Improvements: Details any existing structures on the property. The plans we submit to the municipality for the approval of your swimming pool building permit must show the location of both the pool and the pool equipment pad relative to the property boundaries and to the existing buildings.
- Easements: Identifies areas where other parties may have the right to access or use your land. Easements can significantly impact your plans for swimming pool placement. For example, utility companies may have the right to access certain areas of your property. If you’re contemplating building a swimming pool by a lake, you need to keep it away from any legally defined lake maintenance areas. A site survey identifies these areas, helping us, as your pool design and construction company, guide you in the selection of an acceptable location for your pool.
The elevation of all patios in the pool area should be measured and shown in property surveys for swimming pool construction. We often determine the elevation of the pool coping in relation to the elevation of an existing patio or a patio to be built around the pool.
Property Surveys for Swimming Pool Construction
The property survey is the foundation for the Site Plan our pool engineers draw as part of the pool plans we must submit to the municipality for building approval. The Site Plan indicates the precise placement of the pool, the pool patio and other elements of your project. Pool plans are more credible and more readily accepted by municipalities when all information in it regarding the property and the terrain are also shown in the property survey.
More specifically, a property survey to be submitted to municipalities for the purposes of a new swimming pool construction will ideally include the following additional elements:
Commonly indicated in surveys as FFE, the finished floor elevation of the lowest living space in your house is a critical piece of information for essentially all swimming pool plans. In most cases, there will be a step down from the house to an outdoor patio — typically 4 to 8 inches. The elevation of all patios in the pool area should also be measured and shown in surveys for swimming pools. We often determine the elevation of the pool coping in relation to the elevation of an existing patio or a patio to be built around the pool.
When the terrain is not reasonably flat but slopes in one or more directions, knowing the ground elevation at certain points helps us develop pool plans that ensure proper drainage. In South Florida, where flooding is a common concern, municipalities want to make sure your swimming pool construction plans have provisions such as swales around the property. This is to ensure rain water is retained within your property and does not flow onto your neighbors’ properties or onto the streets. The building departments in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood and West Palm Beach have strict requirements regarding drainage, for good reason.
Access to swimming pools must be restricted by “barriers” such as fences and walls that prevent unwanted access by children. The Florida Building Code specifies the minimum requirements for various kinds of barriers. A survey indicating the location, height and material of fences and gates facilitates the approval of pool plans.
In South Florida, a swimming pool must not be built within 10 feet of an overhead electric cable. A survey that includes the location of the electric service drop and/or the electric meter helps the building department validate that the proposed placement of your swimming pool complies with the Florida Building Code.
We must indicate the location of these items in our Site Plan, along with the presumed location of water supply and sanitary and gas lines that are inside the property to determine if the proposed excavation site will or will not require the relocation of any of these utility lines.
If there are any septic tanks in the property, whether in use or not, they must be indicated in the site plan, and we must obtain a release from the Florida Department of Health as part of the permitting process.
Municipalities in South Florida have specific ordinances and regulations regarding tree removal. If the proposed swimming pool project requires the removal or relocation of any trees, certain conditions must be met for plan approval. Also, if there are any trees in the general vicinity of the proposed pool location, a plan to protect the trees during construction must be proposed and approved by the municipality. Sometimes a note in the site plan stating that no trees will be impacted by the proposed pool is enough for permit approval. In some cases, though, especially when there are many trees of a substantial size in the vicinity of the proposed pool, the municipality will insist that the plans include a tree survey. The tree survey can be incorporated into the property survey or can be provided separately. A tree survey consists essentially of a detailed assessment and mapping of all trees on the property where the construction will take place.
You May Already Have a Property Survey
Chances are you already have a property survey. If you used financing to purchase your home, your lender will certainly have required one, and you’ll probably find it with your other settlement papers. We will help you determine if the survey you have is adequate for your new pool construction project or if you need a new one. Regardless, we can use whatever survey you have to start working on a preliminary pool design for your review.
Digitally Signed Surveys
There are a few municipalities in South Florida, such as Dania Beach, which still process permit applications in paper form — but it won’t be long before all applications must be submitted online with electronic documents. Some cities, such as Hollywood, may still accept the scanned form of a physically signed and sealed survey, whereas Fort Lauderdale and most of the other larger cities will insist on a digitally signed and sealed survey in PDF format.
If you already have a survey but only in paper form, you should contact your surveyor (their name and number are listed on the survey) and request a digitally signed version of it. Most will provide it to you for free or for a small fee, as long as the survey is not too old and they have it saved as an electronic file.
Ask for the CAD File
Surveyors typically give you a choice to receive your survey in the form of paper or a digitally signed PDF file. Some will send you both. There is a third form, which is highly desirable for construction purposes: the CAD file. It is usually provided free of charge, but you have to ask for it. The CAD file is an electronic file with a .DWG extension which can be opened by AutoCAD and other architectural and engineering design applications. Having the CAD file will save our pool engineers precious time in the pool design process and lead to a more complete and accurate Site Plan. Please ask for it.
By investing in a professional property survey including the extra elements specifically required for swimming pool construction, you help ensure that your swimming pool construction project goes through the permitting process more expediently.
Do You Need a New Survey?
As part of the application process to for a swimming pool building permit in South Florida, most municipalities will require a property survey that is less than 10 years old — but there is a way to circumvent this requirement. If you have a property survey that is less than 10 years old and you haven’t added or removed any structures since it was done, chances are you will not need a new survey. You just have to provide a signed “survey affidavit” as the property owner, stating nothing has in fact changed since it was completed. Specific rules on the acceptance of older surveys depend on the municipality. If they’ll accept your existing survey, we’ll take care of adding any information missing from it to our site plan.
If there have been changes to the structures in your property, such as the addition of a room, driveway or patio, since the date of the last survey, you will most likely be required to order a new survey or a survey update. Even if the changes don’t appear related to your pool project, we have to provide to the municipality certain calculations of perviousness ratios that are impacted by such changes.
How Much Does a Property Survey Cost?
Generally, you should expect to pay around $500 to $800 for a property survey, depending on factors such as the size and complexity of the property, and the applicable items for inclusion. The cost of adding tree information, when required, depends primarily on the number of trees.
Choosing a Licensed Surveyor
There is an abundance of licensed surveyors in South Florida. If needed, AQUAVIX Pools can provide recommendations based on your property location. As most surveyors can adequately do their job, the key factor in the selection of a surveyor for your swimming pool project (aside from price) is the delivery time. You should be able to find a surveyor who can come to your property and provide you with the survey within a two-week timeframe, at the most. Experience with surveys for swimming pool construction is obviously a plus.
Elevation Certificate
If your new swimming pool construction project is located in a flood zone, your municipality may require an elevation certificate, which you most likely already have. Look for your elevation certificate in your settlement papers. It’s often attached to the survey if you have it in PDF format.
Regardless of whether or not your municipality requires an elevation certificate for permitting, if you are in a flood zone our pool engineers will need some terrain and building elevation information to complete some design calculations such as uplift forces and flotation analysis. For more information on this, please refer to our blog article on elevation certificates.
Conclusion
A property survey is an indispensable document required to build a swimming pool. You may already have a survey. Please send it to us so we can start a preliminary pool design and help you determine if you should get a new one. By investing in a professional, digitally signed property survey including the extra elements specifically required for swimming pool construction (be sure to check our list above), with the corresponding CAD file, you will help ensure that your swimming pool project goes through the building permitting process expediently.