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LandTechNews/Blog

Site Layout Planning and Design for Land Development

The LandTech land surveying and civil engineering design team works with our clients to define project needs and objectives as an initial step in the land development design process. Project objectives could include a required building area, parking space needs, and street advertising signs, just to name a few.

A review of the local zoning ordinances is an important element of the site layout planning and design process. The Knoxville-Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission website is a good resource for zoning regulation information; see their website here: http://www.knoxmpc.org/zoning/zonhome.htm.

For a project in Knox County, Tennessee we would refer to their specific zoning ordinance here: http://archive.knoxmpc.org/zoning/KnoxCounty.pdf.

The zoning ordinance describes different zones, or the “part or parts of Knox County for which the regulations relating to the use of land and buildings are uniform.” Examples of Zones include General Residential Zone (RB), Office Park Zone (OA), and Industrial (I).

Requirements for development in the RB zone include building setback distances for front yards (35-feet), side yards (8-feet for single story dwellings) and rear yards (25-feet for buildings less than three stories).

There is a wealth of information in the zoning ordinance documents, such as off street parking requirements, sign and advertising structures, and descriptions of administrative review processes.

If you have any questions about local zoning ordinance requirements in the locality for your project, please call or contact us using our website http://landtechco.com/contact_us.

For more information bout LandTech Engineering & Surveying, please visit www.landtechco.com.

Jay Lewis Civil Engineering, Knoxville, Land Surveying 0 Comments

Mild mannered civil engineer or rabid college football fan?

This time of year I spend my days as a mild mannered civil engineer and land surveyor, but spend my weekends as a rabid college football fan.

If you’re a college football fan like me, then this time of the year is like Christmas. How can I complain? The Tennessee Vols are undefeated and just hired a coach that’s undefeated as their head coach, and the East Tennessee State University Buccaneers have one up on the Vols: they’ve been undefeated since 2003.

All kidding aside, I’m pretty excited to see what the Vols will do this year with a new coach, and I’ll be among the 100,000+ fans at the game in Knoxville on August 31 when UT plays Austin Peay.

If you’re interested in reading more about the Vols football team, there’s a lot of good information on the UT Sports website here: http://www.utsports.com/sports/m-footbl/tenn-m-footbl-body.html

And to learn about ETSU’s return to competing in Division I FCS Football, check this link: http://www.etsubucs.com/football/

Jay Lewis College Football, ETSU Sports, Sports, UT Volunteer Sports 0 Comments

What is Erosion Control?

Land development design plans prepared by LandTech’s civil engineer primarily indicates the final site features to be installed, such as parking lots, sidewalks, and roads. However, there’s an important part of the design plan drawing set that’s not a final site feature, but is only implemented during the construction phase of the project……erosion and sediment control.

According to the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation (TDEC) :

“Construction activities near streams, rivers, and lakes have the potential to cause water pollution and stream degradation if erosion and sediment controls are not properly installed and maintained. In order to effectively reduce erosion and sedimentation impacts, Best Management Practices (BMP’s) must be designed, installed, and maintained during land disturbing activities.”

TDEC publishes an “Erosion & Sediment Control Handbook” used by developers, engineers, and contractors for the proper design, installation and maintenance of erosion control practices. The handbook can be downloaded in pdf format here:

http://www.tnepsc.org/TDEC_EandS_Handbook_2012_Edition4/TDEC%20EandS%20Handbook%204th%20Edition.pdf

Some localities may have additional erosion control requirements. For example, the City of Knoxville Stormwater Engineering Department publishes the “Knoxville BMP Manual” with guidance on preparing erosion control plans in their jurisdiction. The BMP manual can be downloaded in pdf format here:

http://www.cityofknoxville.org/engineering/bmp_manual/knoxvilleBMP.pdf

We’d love to discuss any questions you have about erosion control. Feel free to call us, or contact us on our website at: http://landtechco.com/contact_us

Jay Lewis Civil Engineering, Land Development 0 Comments

Land Surveying: the critical first step in civil engineering design

There’s a famous equation you may have heard of…..”garbage in = garbage out”.

This certainly holds true for civil engineering and land development designs. The critical first step in the design process is a quality land survey.

Land surveying involves making measurements of features on land, both horizontal and vertical measurements, for the production of maps (called topographic maps) or plats (boundary maps) used by civil engineers for land development design projects. Features typically measured include property corners, pavement outlines, curbs, sidewalks, buildings, utilities, and ground surface elevations.

LandTech uses the latest, most advanced equipment and technology, in our land surveying services, including:

  • Infrared and laser measuring devices;
  • Digital and robotic surveying equipment;
  • Wireless communications and data transmission;
  • Global positioning satellite systems (GPS);
  • Computer-assisted drafting and design (CADD); and
  • Advanced electromagnetic pipe and cable locators

Samples of surveying mapping prepared by LandTech in the Knoxville and East Tennessee region can be found on our website: http://landtechco.com/services/samples_of_our_work

Jay Lewis Civil Engineering, Land Surveying 0 Comments

Software upgrades…done!

We are now fully up and running with the latest version of Carlson’s land development design software, Carlson 2014 Civil Suite, on all LandTech company computers. We have been using Carlson’s Survey module since 2009, and with the addition of civil engineering to LandTech’s service offerings, we added Carlson’s engineering-related modules. We have been very happy so far with Carlson’s product, pricing and very responsive technical support. If you are curious about Carlson’s products and capabilities, you can learn more here:

http://www.carlsonsw.com/

Mike Lewis LandTech News 0 Comments

So what’s the difference between civil engineering and land development design?

I guess the best way to differentiate these two topics:

  • Civil engineering is a subset of the entire engineering profession, such as electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, aerospace engineering, etc.
  • Where land development design is a subset of civil engineering, such as geotechnical, environmental, water resources, etc.

A good overview of the tasks involved in civil engineering land development design is described in the City of Knoxville Engineering Department’s Land Development Manual here: http://www.cityofknoxville.org/engineering/ldmanual/KnoxvilleLDM.pdf

LandTech offers land development design services for residential, commercial, and industrial projects. Land development designs will typically include topographic / property boundary land surveys and mapping, erosion and sediment control, site layout planning and design, roadway plan and profiles, grading plans, stormwater management, domestic water and sanitary sewer utilities, Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plans (SWPPP) and associated permits, and layout for construction.

For more information about our land development design services, call or contact us using our company website: http://landtechco.com/contact_us

Jay Lewis Civil Engineering, Land Development 0 Comments

LandTech Announces Civil Engineering Services in Knoxville and East Tennessee Region

We’re happy to announce as of July 2013 LandTech is offering civil engineering design as part of our professional services, and we’re excited about serving the land development community in the Knoxville and East Tennessee region.

Our civil engineering design services will include Land Development Design, Land Surveys and Mapping, Erosion and Sediment Control, Site Layout Planning and Design, Roadway Plan and Profiles, Grading Plans, Stormwater Management, Domestic Water and Sanitary Sewer Utilities, and Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plans (SWPPP) and Associated Permits.

In future blog posts, we’ll describe our civil engineering design services in more detail.

If you’re planning a land development project in the Knoxville or East Tennessee region and need civil engineering design services, or if you have questions about our professional service offerings, we are happy to discuss your project and ways we can help you. Here is the contact link from our company website: http://www.landtechco.com/contact_us.

Jay Lewis Civil Engineering, Knox County, Knoxville, LandTech News, Uncategorized 0 Comments

Vivax-Metrotech Pipe and Cable Locator

LandTech recently acquired a Vivax-Metrotech vLockPro2 underground cable and pipe locator. The system comes with a hand-held receiver and 5 watt transmitter, and works in both passive and inductive modes.  Passive mode works best for locating live buried electric lines, and inductive mode is used when searching for buried metallic cables and pipes, or nonmetallic pipes with tracer wires. We have been able to use the equipment on three jobs now, and we are very impressed with its capabilities. We were able to confirm underground utilities shown by KUB and City of Knoxville Engineering Department records, and we also accurately located private underground service lines for our clients’ projects.

We have nothing but good things to say about the folks at Tracer Electronics in Mt. Juliet, TN, our Metrotech dealer. If you are interested in knowing more about this particular equipment, check out the Vivax-Metrotech website:

http://www.vivax-metrotech.com/productshow.asp?id=63

Preston Smith LandTech News, Underground Utility Location 1 Comment

It’s software upgrade time

I have chosen this weekend to upgrade LandTech’s engineering design and surveying software. We use Carlson running on IntelliCad 7.2, and we are going from Carlson Civil Suite 2013 to the 2014 version, which we have on four computers, two office desktop computers and two laptops for use in the field.

As far as the surveying features go, I think the changes are incremental, but version 2013 seemed a little more buggy than version 2012, and the previous one we used, version 2009.

So far, the upgrade is going slowly, mainly because the new 2014 version doesn’t seem to want to properly load LandTech’s CAD user interface profile (.arg file) that we saved from the prior version. I am having to arrange the toolbars and toolbuttons, and set all the CAD settings manually.

Mike Lewis LandTech News 0 Comments