18-Geom-B5 Survey Law · May 2016
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams — May 2016 — 04-Geom-B5 Survey Law. Three hours; CLOSED BOOK, NO CALCULATOR. NINE (9) questions constitute a complete paper; most answers require sentence-and-paragraph format, and clarity and organization are marked. All nine questions (including every lettered sub-part) are solved in full below. Content is framed in the Canadian common-law and Ontario land-registration context named by the source (Surveyor General's Instructions, the Ontario township survey systems, Registry/Land Titles, the Expropriations Act).
Reference texts: Survey Law in Canada (Canadian Council of Land Surveyors / Carswell, 1989); Brown, Robillard & Wilson, Brown's Boundary Control and Legal Principles (7th ed., Wiley, 2017); Association of Ontario Land Surveyors (AOLS) Survey Review and educational materials; the Surveys Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. S.30, the Registry Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. R.20, the Land Titles Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. L.5, the Boundaries Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. B.10, and the Expropriations Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. E.26.
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
A "road" as a legal entity — a public highway over which the public has a right of passage — can be brought into existence in several ways. The five most common are:
1. Original road allowance laid out in the original township survey. Under the Surveyor General's Instructions, road allowances were surveyed and set aside between and along the concessions and lots. Being Crown-originated and confirmed by statute, these allowances are public highways vested in the municipality; they are the oldest and most widespread source of rural roads in Ontario.
2. Registered plan of subdivision (dedication on registration). When an owner subdivides land and registers a plan of subdivision, the streets shown on the plan are dedicated to public use by the very act of registration, and under the Municipal Act, 2001, s. 26 they are public highways vested in the municipality from registration — although the municipality's duty to maintain them begins only when it assumes them by by-law. This is the ordinary way roads are created in modern urban development.
3. Common-law dedication and acceptance. A road may arise where a landowner, by words or conduct, dedicates a strip to the public as a highway and the public accepts it — shown typically by actual public use together with the municipality assuming or maintaining the way. Both the intention to dedicate and acceptance must be established. Ontario also supplies a statutory form of acceptance: under the Municipal Act, 2001, s. 26 (carried forward from the former Act), a road on which public money has been expended for its opening, or on which statute labour has usually been performed, is a public highway — which is how a travelled “trespass road” lying off the original allowance can become a legal road, so the surveyor must show both the travelled road and the original allowance.
4. Establishment by municipal by-law (statutory establishment). A municipality may, under the Municipal Act, create or assume a highway directly by passing a by-law establishing it as a public road — independent of any voluntary dedication. The road exists by force of the by-law and the registered instrument.
5. Expropriation by a public authority. A municipality or the province may acquire the land needed for a new or widened road by expropriation under statutory power, paying compensation and registering a plan of expropriation. The highway is created by force of the enabling legislation and the registered plan.
Roads are correspondingly closed by the reverse mechanisms — a stopping-up by-law, an order, or a plan — whereupon the land, subject to the statute, may revert to the abutting owners; but the five routes above are how the legal road is brought into being.
