The surveys a Burnaby custom home needs, and when each one happens

The first survey on a Burnaby custom home usually happens before we have a contract. Somebody walks the lot with a tape, finds one iron pin in the front corner, cannot find the other three, and asks us whether the old cedar fence is on the line. We do not know. Neither does the seller. The only person in the province who can answer that question with legal weight is a BC Land Surveyor, and that survey is the first of four the project will need before the keys change hands.

The four are the legal survey (the posting plan), the topographic survey, the foundation form survey, and whatever gets measured when the house is finished. They happen at different moments, they answer different questions, and each one has a point in the schedule where missing it stops the job. This post walks through all four for a Burnaby lot, with a note on where Coquitlam and Richmond do it differently.

Who a BC Land Surveyor is, and why the City will not accept anyone else

British Columbia's Land Surveyors Act defines the practice of land surveying as measuring to determine, locate, define, establish or re-establish boundaries, and it restricts that practice to practising land surveyors admitted under the Act. The profession is regulated by the Association of British Columbia Land Surveyors, and a commissioned BC Land Surveyor is the only person authorized to carry out a legal survey here. The Land Title and Survey Authority is where the resulting plans get filed, and its own description of a survey plan is a good one: a picture of the legal boundaries and dimensions of a parcel, showing the type and location of the monuments or posts set in the ground to define them.

Our crew lays out a house every week with a builder's level and a string line. That is layout, and we are good at it. It starts from marks a surveyor set, and the surveyor decides where the line is.

Survey one: the legal survey and the posting plan

This is the one that finds the corners. The surveyor locates the existing survey posts, re-sets any that are missing or disturbed, and produces a posting plan showing what was found and what was set. The City of Burnaby's Legal Survey Requirements for Single and Two Family Dwellings says a posting plan is required where one or more angle points of the parcel are redefined on the ground by a post. If every original post is in place and undisturbed, no posting plan is needed, and the posts are shown on the topographic survey instead.

The Burnaby Building Bylaw, section 9(3)(b), lets the Building Inspector require a current posting and topographic survey prepared by a land surveyor registered in BC as part of the permit application. And the City's Permits and Inspections for New Single and Two Family Dwellings guide lists a posting survey by a BC Land Surveyor among the documents that must be on site at the foundation form inspection.

What it does for the project: it fixes where the setbacks are measured from, it shows fences, hedges and neighbour footings that sit over the line, and it exposes easements and rights of way that limit where the house can go. On a Burnaby Heights lot with a 1950s fence, the line and the fence are two different things more often than people expect. The lot walk we do before purchase, which we described in how we evaluate a Burnaby teardown lot, treats the posting plan as the first document to order.

Who orders it: the buyer, before the offer goes firm, if we have any say. It is cheap insurance on the largest purchase in the deal. If the lot is already bought, we order it together with the topographic survey so one crew does both in a single visit.

Survey two: the topographic survey

The topographic survey is the plan the rest of the design reads from. In Burnaby it goes into the Engineering pre-application package that the New Home Construction page requires before a building application is considered complete. The Engineering Department publishes its own Topographical Survey Requirements, and they are specific:

• Sealed, signed and dated by a BC Land Surveyor, on the Burnaby Integrated Datum, with elevations tied to Canadian Geodetic Datum from a numbered Integrated Survey Monument.
• Not more than 12 months old, drawn on existing original grades. Filling or excavating before the survey to change the grades is not acceptable.
• Lot dimensions and area from the field survey, with the posts or monuments at every angle point.
• Spot elevations around the perimeter and 5 feet onto the adjacent lots, at every grade change greater than 1 foot, along both sides of the driveway out to the road centreline, and on the sewer manholes upstream and downstream of the connection.
• A temporary benchmark set on site.
• Every tree over 20 cm in diameter, tagged with a numbered City tag, with its base elevation, drip line and species, including neighbour trees within 2 m of the boundary and trees on the City boulevard.
• Where the Zoning Bylaw applies front yard averaging, the surveyor calculates the average.

One note on age. The Engineering requirements, revised in April 2023, say 12 months. The older Building Department brochure on legal survey requirements, dated 2012, says 6 months. We plan for the tighter figure and confirm with the intake clerk before we submit.

Why so much detail: this plan is what the height calculation on a sloped lot reads its grades from, which is why the City insists on existing original grades with no filling or excavating first. It is also what the driveway grade, the sewer service elevations and the foundation drainage design are worked out from, and it is the base plan the geotechnical engineer marks up when a geotechnical report is needed on a sloped lot. Change the grades after the survey and every one of those calculations is wrong.

Who orders it: we do, once the design is ready to submit. Order it too early and it can age out before the application goes in. Order it too late and the architect is guessing at grades.

The topographic survey is the one drawing on the job that nobody argues with. Every other sheet is somebody's intention. This one is what the ground actually does.

Icon Projects Team

Survey three: the form survey, before the concrete truck

The foundation forms are the last moment the house can move. Section 21(1)(a) of the Burnaby Building Bylaw requires an inspection of the foundation and footing forms when complete and before concrete is poured, and it says a licensed BC Land Surveyor's certificate may be required to confirm the location or elevation of the forms on site. The City's inspections guide goes further for houses: the foundation form survey by a BC Land Surveyor is required for all new construction and major additions, and it has to be on site at the form inspection.

The Legal Survey Requirements brochure spells out what the form survey shows: setbacks, overall form dimensions, elevations at the pour line all around the top of the foundation walls and the basement floor slab, the location and elevation of the temporary benchmark, and any encroachments, such as a neighbour's footing, that did not appear on the topographic plan.

Two things get caught here. The first is position. A form panel that crept toward the side yard while the crew braced it is an hour's work to move before the pour and a concrete saw afterward. The second is elevation. If the top of the foundation wall is high against the pour-line elevation the surveyor certifies, the whole house is high, and on a lot where the roof was designed to the height limit there is no room to absorb it. We book the surveyor for the day the forms are complete, so the certificate is in hand when we call the inspection, which the bylaw requires with at least 24 hours' notice.

Who orders it: the builder. It is timed against the forms crew, and only the builder knows when they will be done.

Survey four: what gets measured at the end

Here is the honest version. Burnaby's inspection schedule for a new single-family house, as published in the inspections guide, runs from the foundation form inspection through framing, insulation and the final trade inspections to the final building inspection for the Occupancy Certificate. An as-built survey is not on that list.

We order one anyway when there is a reason, and there usually is one. A lender or insurer wants a surveyor's plan of the finished house on the lot. A neighbour's footing or eave crosses the line and an encroachment agreement has to describe it. There is a second building on the lot, a laneway house or a coach house, and its position relative to the main house and the lane matters for the file. Or the house is going to be sold within a few years and a buyer's lawyer will ask for a plan showing the improvements relative to the boundaries. Doing it while the surveyor's benchmark is still on site is far easier than reconstructing it later.

Other cities handle this differently, which is worth knowing if you are comparing lots. Richmond's homeowner permit guide lists a survey certificate to be submitted to the Permit Centre right after the forms inspection, as its own line in the building inspection sequence. Coquitlam writes its own requirements. Never assume the Burnaby sequence travels.

What a missing survey costs the schedule

Nothing in this post carries a price, because the fee for a survey is small next to what a gap costs in weeks. The gaps look like this:

• No posting plan, or posts that have been disturbed since the last one: the foundation form inspection cannot proceed, because the posting survey has to be on site.
• A topographic survey older than the City's limit, or one drawn after the lot was regraded: the Engineering pre-application is incomplete, and the building application is incomplete with it.
• No form survey: no pour. The inspector will not approve the forms, and the concrete order gets pushed with everything behind it.
• No end-of-job survey when a lender or lawyer wants one: a closing or a draw waits while a surveyor is found and the benchmark is re-established.

Who orders what

The legal survey before purchase belongs to the buyer, because it protects the purchase decision. From the day Icon Projects is engaged, we order the rest: the topographic survey and posting plan for the permit package, the form survey timed to the forms inspection, and the end-of-job survey when the file calls for one. We use one surveyor for all of them. The temporary benchmark set on the topographic survey is the same benchmark the form survey reads from, and keeping one firm on the file means the numbers agree with each other from the first pin to the last.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a legal survey before buying a teardown lot in Burnaby?

We recommend it, and on a lot with an old fence or hedge on the line we insist on it. A BC Land Surveyor finds the existing survey posts, re-sets any that are missing and produces a posting plan, which is what tells you where the setbacks are measured from. The City of Burnaby's Building Bylaw lets the Building Inspector require a current posting and topographic survey with the permit application, so the plan gets used either way.

Who is allowed to do a property line survey in BC?

Only a practising BC Land Surveyor. The provincial Land Surveyors Act restricts the practice of land surveying, which it defines as measuring to determine, locate, define or re-establish boundaries, to land surveyors admitted by the Association of British Columbia Land Surveyors. A builder's crew can lay out a house from the surveyor's marks, but it cannot decide where the line is.

What does a topographic survey have to show for a Burnaby building permit?

The City of Burnaby's Engineering Department requires the plan to be sealed by a BC Land Surveyor, use the Burnaby Integrated Datum, show the lot dimensions from the field survey, spot elevations around the perimeter and 5 feet onto the neighbouring lots, elevations along both sides of the driveway to the road centreline, and every tree over 20 cm in diameter with its base elevation and drip line. It has to use existing original grades, so no filling or excavating before the survey.

How old can the topographic survey be when I apply for a permit in Burnaby?

The Engineering Department's topographical survey requirements, revised April 2023, say the plan cannot be more than 12 months old. An older Building Department brochure on legal survey requirements, from 2012, says 6 months. We order the survey when the design is ready to submit rather than at the start of design, and we confirm the current limit with the intake clerk before submitting.

What is a foundation form survey and why does Burnaby require it before the pour?

It is a BC Land Surveyor's plan of the finished foundation forms, showing setbacks, overall form dimensions, the elevations at the pour line around the top of the foundation walls and slab, the temporary benchmark, and any encroachments. Burnaby requires it on site at the foundation form inspection for all new construction, and the Building Bylaw allows the inspector to ask for a surveyor's certificate on the location or elevation of the forms. It is the last check before the house is fixed in place.

What happens if the foundation forms are over the setback line in Burnaby?

If the form survey catches it before the pour, the crew moves the panels and the surveyor re-shoots them, which costs hours. If it is caught after the concrete is placed, the options are cutting concrete or applying for a variance, and both cost weeks. This is why we book the surveyor for the day the forms are finished rather than the morning of the inspection.

Does Burnaby require an as-built survey at the end of a custom home build?

Burnaby's inspection schedule for a new single-family home ends with the final building inspection for the Occupancy Certificate and does not list an as-built survey. We order one anyway when there is a reason: a lender or insurer asking for a plan of the finished house on the lot, an encroachment agreement with a neighbour, or a second building on the lot. Richmond, by comparison, lists a survey certificate right after the forms inspection in its homeowner permit guide.

Who orders the surveys on a custom home in Coquitlam or Burnaby, the owner or the builder?

The legal survey before purchase is the buyer's to order, because it protects the purchase decision. Once we are engaged, Icon Projects orders the topographic survey and posting plan for the permit application, books the form survey to match the forms inspection, and arranges any end-of-job survey. We use one surveyor for all of them so the temporary benchmark set on the topographic plan is the same one the form survey reads from.