Expand COGO Reader beyond Parcel Fabric

[cmathers]

I do not maintain parcel data and do not need to use the Parcel Fabric for my work but frequently deal with surveys none the less. It would be helpful to be able to use the COGO Reader tool outside of the Parcel Fabric to scan a deed and push the result into the normal Traverse tool.

[GordonCourtney]

Please consider having this tool outside of the fabric. We have multiple people in my organization that would benefit from this, but we have no need for a parcel fabric as we do not map assessment parcels. @AmirBar-Maor 

[CFMGIS]

This would be extrememly useful for those that have a need to run legal descriptions but have no need for the fabric!

[AmirBar-Maor]

@GordonCourtney  @CFMGIS 

COGO Reader is designed for parcels of any kind (lots, subdivisions, tax parcels, ROWs...) that are based on a metes-and-bounds legal description.

The parcel fabric controls simple feature classes and has many benefits for cadastre / land records:

1. Every feature is associated to the legal record it came from
2. Historic parent parcels are created when parcels are split / merged
3. Parcel Lineage is maintained and can be depicted to support chain of title research
4. Dedicated tools that save you time
5. Quality capabilities that can be configured to help you evaluate your data + tools that help you fix common issues
6. Easy to migrate and deploy on a file GDB or ArcGIS Enterprise
7. many more...

So what keeps your organization from migrating to the parcel fabric? Is it because your organization still uses GIS software as a drafting tool (like CAD)? Or reluctant to adopt a web service-based architecture and improve collaboration between departments and stakeholders?

Given that it takes minutes 

[GordonCourtney]

@AmirBar-Maor Thank you so much for your response. The Parcel Fabric is very valuable and our property appraiser office does use the Parcel Fabric; however, I am part of separate organization that verifies and maps legal descriptions for a different purpose other than mapping lots, subdivisions, tax parcels, and ROWs.

The new COGO Reader tool is amazing and we plan to use it regardless just to map the descriptions and then paste into a COGO line outside of a fabric, but it would be great if it is made available outside of the Fabric. I have multiple users in my organization that will benefit from this amazing tool; however, none of us map legal descriptions for lots, subdivisions, or ROWs that would benefit using the Parcel Fabric. 

I look forward to attending some sessions at the UC and speaking with some of the team to see if it will ever be considered outside of the Parcel fabric as this new tool is beneficial to all of us that need to verify and map legal descriptions for a wide variety of reasons. 

[CFMGIS]

Good morning,

I understand that the COGO Reader is designed for parcels. However, my organization is not responsible for maintaining parcels in the traditional sense (lots, subdivisions, tax parcels). My organization is responsible for maintaining zoning, future land use, special development areas, etc. using ArcGIS Pro. Given that the Parcel Fabric can manipulate the polygon geometry, this is not well suited for individuals that need view the mapped legally described boundaries as they truly are. Nor is it beneficial for organizations that have a need to run spatial queries against these polygons (E.g. to determine the FEMA flood zone) as doing so may generate false negatives or false positives, adversely impacting the development and other processes, costing customers and staff valuable time and money.

The point being made here is that this is an opportunity for ESRI to provide its customers with a useful/ time saving tool in the simplest way without forcing them to implement something that they may not need/want (prior experience with parcel fabric has taught me to be very leery of it). We are simply asking for a tool that can read and map metes-and-bounds legal descriptions without having to develop a fabric and all that entails.

Thank you

[cmathers]

@AmirBar-Maor I frequently work with historic data while doing title investigation. The results might be used for an overlay and do not need to be incorporated into a larger cadastral dataset. I have punched in adjacent parcel descriptions to a subject parcel just to add context and compare boundary alignment between descriptions with no need to permanently maintain those additional boundaries. I recently worked through multiple versions of the same description and did not need all of them so I drew them into a temporary working file as the concept was refined. Having to push those into a Fabric dataset as I worked would have been unnecessary. I worked in local government and see the benefits of the Parcel Fabric to that industry but other industries use cadastral data without needing to maintain that sort of large combined cadastral dataset. I am going to be at the UC and might find some time to sit down with someone to discuss it.

[BuffaloCoWI]

@AmirBar-Maor 

We do use the Parcel Fabric, but I would much prefer that COGO Reader did not have that as a prerequisite. I often plot legal descriptions from deeds on a temporary layer.

[LTWDGIS]

I agree with other people's comments.  I work for a water district that has no need for creating a parcel fabric because that's not our line of work.  Having said that, we do process legal descriptions on a regular basis, and it would be great if we could use COGO Reader's capabilities to read / OCR a document and have it create geometry for us.  As a professional land surveyor, I can assure Esri that having a tool like this would present ArcGIS in a new light within the survey industry.  Esri, please give this idea consideration for an upcoming version, hopefully sooner rather than later.

[LTWDGIS]

Same in my work.  Don't have a need for a parcel fabric, but it would be very helpful to have this tool work with the Traverse tool to read legal descriptions and create geometry from it.

[Brian_McLeer]

This could be useful or creating polygon and line easement records.