Commissioners approve $500,000 to accelerate DeKalb County’s cornerstone‑perpetuation program; ordinance advances on first reading

DeKalb County commissioners voted Sept. 15 to direct $500,000 from the county’s lighted fund to the county surveyor’s cornerstone perpetuation program, a multiyear effort to locate, document and set monuments for the county’s public land corners.

County surveyor Taylor told the board that roughly half of the county’s 1,692 section corners lack verified coordinates or an enduring monument — what he and staff call “red corners” — and that verifying monuments and uploading coordinates into the public GIS database would reduce survey time and avoid future property‑line disputes. Taylor said the office and private partners have already completed about 180–200 corners since the program began and that continued work will require steady funding.

Why it matters: Section corner monuments are the legal reference for many surveys and land division projects. When corners are “obliterated” (the physical monument is gone and coordinates are not available), surveyors must perform time‑consuming field work to reestablish the corner. Taylor told commissioners that restoring monuments improves accuracy for private surveys, reduces future disputes, and preserves infrastructure for new development.

Program mechanics discussed

- Perpetuation duty: Taylor said state law requires surveyors to perpetuate 5% of a county’s section corners annually; the county is behind that schedule and has prioritized townships where new development is occurring.

- Developer responsibilities: Taylor described a proposed ordinance (introduced earlier in the meeting for first reading) that would require private developers to perpetuate any corner used in their plats or surveys or pay for county‑arranged perpetuation. Developers could use their licensed surveyor to perform perpetuation or the county would send a contracted surveyor; the draft ordinance sets a county contractor cap (not to exceed $5,000 per corner) so developers would know worst‑case cost.

- County backstop and noncompliance: Taylor explained the ordinance is designed to avoid classifying the…