Some property owners with smaller parcels in Sections 7, 8, 9, 17, and 18 of Schroeder Township that were surveyed last year may be unhappy to find out that the county may assess them more than the $500 they expected to pay. They will have a chance to speak to the county board about it, however, at a public hearing in March.
In addition to about 1,080 acres of state-owned land, county-appointed surveyor Wayne Hensche surveyed about 1,976 acres owned by 31 different entities. Without the survey, property owners could not be sure what property was actually theirs.
In a proposal to the county in May 2011, Hensche wrote, “The current lack of controlling corners requires proper surveys to span 2-3 miles in 1-2 directions, making them cost-prohibitive to individual owners. …Essentially the whole area must be surveyed to do it correctly. Any piecemeal survey not entirely bounded by controlling 1859 original corners will not stand the test of time.”
Surveyor Hensche told the county board on February 26 that half of the original section corners had been missing. “It’s a needle in a haystack kind of thing,” he said of trying to find the corners, “and it’s a lot of fun!”
Expected costs
The minutes from the July 12, 2011 Schroeder Township meeting state that 67 percent of the residents in the survey area were in favor of doing the survey and that the cost was expected to be $17/acre up to a maximum of $500. A May 24, 2011 letter to Schroeder property owners from Hensche and County Auditor- Treasurer Braidy Powers states, however, that while estimated costs for the larger parcels was “in the $17per acre range,” landowners with 30 or fewer contiguous acres “would be assessed a minimum of about $500 per parcel if past precedent is followed.” At an August 9, 2011 public hearing, Hensche estimated that the cost for parcels of 40 or more acres would be $17.04.
At the February 12 Schroeder Township Board meeting, one resident owning almost 160 acres took issue with a notice that his bill might be close to $2,900, saying that his property had been surveyed several times before and that he did not give permission for county-appointed surveyor Wayne Hensche to go onto his property to conduct another survey. “It’s not right that I should have to pay for a survey that was already done on my property,” he said. The most recent survey had been within the last five years, and he had paid $500 for it, he said.
The disgruntled citizen said Hensche offered to give him $750 off the cost and offered to do more work for him to make it worth his while. He said he didn’t need any more work done.
“Maybe he could do your laundry!” said Schroeder Supervisor Roger “Bill” McKeever.
County Commissioner Bruce Martinson said the county board, which authorized the survey, wants to follow the will of the people. In a separate interview, he said state statutes allow for surveyors to cross properties in the course of their work. He also said that the surveys the property owner was referring to had been done by Minnesota Power but did not include the extent of the work done by Hensche.
The latest numbers
At the February 26, 2013 county board meeting, Hensche brought the results of his survey with three different suggested options that he and Auditor- Treasurer Powers had compiled for assessing the costs. One option was to assess $500 each to the nine property owners with fewer than 31 acres, with the rest of the cost split among the bigger landowners, another was to assess $750 to the smaller property owners and split the rest among the bigger ones, and the third was to assess everyone by the acre, a cost of about $18.95 an acre. County Attorney Tim Scannell pointed out that the county could also assess by the parcel, which would cost each property owner $1,208.44. The law simply requires that survey costs be divided up in an “equitable” way, Auditor-Treasurer Powers said.
Attorney Scannell said the project took a lot of work and is a great value to the county. Even paying a minimum of $750 would be “a deal of a lifetime,” he said.
The total cost of the survey will be $40,461.58, of which $3,000 will be paid by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. “This whole job was done at half price,” Hensche told the board. In a document about potential costs, Hensche indicated that several other Cook County surveys had cost about twice as much per acre.
In a January 2013 letter to landowners, Cook County Auditor-Treasurer Braidy Powers and Board of Commissioners Chair Jan Hall said that the costs were kept down by the DNR’s contribution and collaboration with Allete, the owner of Minnesota Power, which had previously had its Schroeder property surveyed.
Hensche told the county board that he has offered two free corner designations or some money back to four landowners who were on the boundaries of the project and had one side of their properties properly marked already.
The board passed a motion proposing that property owners with 30 acres or less be assessed a $600 minimum, with the rest of the cost to be assessed to the other, larger property owners at $17.66 per acre.
A public hearing will be held at the courthouse at 10 a.m. on March 12 to discuss how the costs will be assessed before the board makes a final decision.
Property owners can pay for the survey through an assessment on their property taxes over the course of 10 years at 1 percent interest.
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