When planning any kind of development, dealing with local Council can be a daunting and confusing experience. Communicating to the Council officers the details of your proposal is not always easy. So what is the process for obtaining development consent? When starting the planning for a development that requires approval, you should ensure that [...]

Surveyors are often called in to resolve disputes between neighbours in regard to dividing fences. A dividing fence can be a structure of almost any material that separates the lands of adjoining owners. A dividing fence does not include a retaining wall or the wall of a building. Where should the fence go? [...]

Compass Consulting Surveyors, Surveyors in Dubbo Compass Consulting Surveyors, while created in 2021, dates back to Doherty Smith & Associates and even further back to Surveyor Jeff Wilson, who opened his surveying practice in Wellington in 1980. Since 1980, the structure of the company has changed and evolved, and so have it's members. We [...]

An easement is an acquired legal right over land benefiting the owner of other land or an Authority such as Council or a service provider. The site of an easement must be defined in a Deposited Plan or a plan annexed to a Real Property Dealing. Another type of easement is a Restriction on [...]

Federal Capital Sites – a case of “What if…” In 1900, the search began for the site of the new Federal capital city. The newly drawn up Constitution set out rules for the Federal capital site requiring that any such site must be located approximately midway between Sydney and Melbourne and not within 100 [...]

Geomorphology is a study of how land changes over time. Fluvial Geomorphology is a study of how watercourses change over time. This blog details work undertaken by Compass Consulting Surveyors in preparing a Geomorphic Assessment of a stretch of the Macquarie River at Montefiores (Wellington), NSW. In 2013, Compass Consulting Surveyors were engaged by [...]

Commonly known as GPS, Global Navigational Satellite Systems are becoming a part of most people’s everyday lives. From giving you directions when driving to tracking your exercise routes, GPS provides a method of locating yourself quickly and easily. Traditionally, GPS refers to the US Government “Navstar” navigational satellite system. Other systems are also in [...]

The survey is complete, and in the mail you find an envelope. When you open the envelope you discover a report and a plan, covered in numbers, lines, text and symbols. You can make out the shape of your land, but a lot of the information shown is beyond your grasp. After some head [...]

LiDAR is a method of measuring distance using laser light. The light reflected from the measured surface is analysed and the data stored as a cloud of points. LiDAR data can be captured by static ground observations using a scanning instrument or from a moving platform such as a ground-based vehicle or an aeroplane. Increasingly, [...]