Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) is seeking feedback on a proposal to modernise the use of survey plans.

Specifically, a prototype has been developed to test digitally visualised survey plans with the aim of creating a product that is more user friendly than the current Landonline survey plans, and which reduces the effort and rework involved in the preparation of manually drafted plans.

The overall goal is to provide a tool to enable survey plan users, such as surveyors and conveyancers, to digitally view and interact with the data forming the Cadastral Survey Dataset (CSD).

The idea is that it will remove the need for surveyors to submit diagrams as part of their CSDs.

According to LINZ, the tool “would not be able to be used for CSDs that already include a static survey plan — that is, all survey plans and CSDs up until the capability is legally introduced.  Those plans would remain as the authoritative depiction of the CSD.”

LINZ acknowledges that such a system “would be a significant change” that would require updates to the Cadastral Survey Rules 2021, and that transition arrangements would need to be put in place.

According to LINZ, “At this stage we are mainly interested in feedback on the proposal. Feedback on the prototype is also welcome however development work has now paused and will resume in 2025.”

Interested parties can give the prototype a trial run and then provide feedback via from August to the end of October through one of the professional bodies (e.g. Survey and Spatial NZ, Institute of Cadastral Surveying, NZ Law Society and Law Association NZ) or by emailing engagement@linz.govt.nz.