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County surveyor presents ORMAP remapping progress; new grant will fund rural township updates
Summary
Wasco County survey staff updated commissioners on progress remapping county parcels under the statewide ORMAP cadastral program and presented a recently awarded grant to remap rural townships, noting the project improves assessor parcel data but is not a substitute for legal surveys.
Bridal Cross, Wasco County surveyor, and Ivan, engineering and survey technician, briefed commissioners on the county’s ORMAP cadastral basemap project and a newly awarded grant to remap rural townships and problem areas.
Cross said the statewide ORMAP program funds county-level work to align tax-lot boundaries with current aerial imagery and geodetic control so assessor maps and property-tax systems are more accurate. He told the board the project’s goals include producing a publicly accessible, continually maintained basemap that supports the property-tax system and other land-information uses. “Cadastral is a word that encompasses basically land boundaries,” Cross explained during the presentation.
Ivan demonstrated before-and-after map examples showing parcel lines that previously appeared to pass through buildings now shifted to align with aerial imagery and ground control. Cross said the program’s specification aims for positional accuracy “within 1 foot” where practical, but he emphasized the county is not resurveying every parcel and homeowners needing legally binding boundary determinations must hire a licensed surveyor.
Cross described the county’s remapping progress: control work for the entire county has been completed and the team has remapped built-up areas such as parts of The Dalles; current and upcoming grants are funding work in Tygh Valley and other rural townships. He said ORMAP grants come from state recording-fee revenue administered by the Oregon Department of Revenue and that Wasco County has received nearly $1 million in ORMAP grants since 2016 to fund control, equipment, internships and remapping work.
Why it matters: improved cadastral data helps the assessor’s valuation process, emergency response mapping and forthcoming FEMA flood-map updates. Cross and county assessor staff cautioned that the remapped parcel data is for assessment and identification purposes only and is not the legal lot of record.
Commissioners asked whether remapped parcels would be legally binding for property disputes; county staff and the assessor’s office stressed that people with boundary disputes must obtain a private survey. Cross said his team is prioritizing smaller, high-need areas and then will systematically remap the rest of the county; staff estimated the project will continue several years given asset and staffing limits.
