ALTA Survey Table A Items Civil Engineers Must Request

Civil engineers ordering an ALTA survey for a development site now work from the 2026 ALTA/NSPS Minimum Standard Detail Requirements, and these rules take effect on February 23, 2026. The baseline ALTA/NSPS survey, the part every survey delivers with no Table A selections at all, covers boundary, the easements listed in the title commitment, and visible improvements. Table A sits on top of that baseline as a separate, negotiated list of optional work, and only the items a client actually selects get performed and certified. Under the 2026 standards, the selection, the wording, and the fee for every Table A item are negotiable, but all of them must be agreed in writing with the surveyor before fieldwork starts, so a civil engineer who waits until after the contract is signed to specify items risks remobilization costs or a gap in the survey's certification. Any new agreement to prepare an ALTA/NSPS survey signed on or after February 23, 2026 has to follow the 2026 standards; for surveys contracted earlier but finished afterward, surveyors may use the 2021 standards only with written consent from all parties, so confirm this transition detail in writing on any project that straddles that date.

Engineering Blind Spots the Baseline Survey Leaves for Table A to Fill

The baseline ALTA/NSPS survey was built for title insurance and lender due diligence, not for engineering design. It tells a title company and a lender what they need to know about ownership, recorded easements, and visible improvements, but it leaves out the physical site data a civil engineer needs to lay out grading, drainage, utility connections, and building footprints: contours, utility depths, flood zone status, encroachment conditions. If a civil engineer works from the baseline alone, the wrong Table A items leave gaps that appear during construction, at the worst possible time. The same logic governs the civil engineer's grading plan, utility layout, and stormwater system: order the data before committing to a layout, not after. The practical cost of under-specifying Table A is remobilization. The surveyor has to return to the site, the schedule slips, and the engineering team stalls on deliverables already underway while it waits for data that should have been in hand from the start.

Item 5 (vertical relief / topography) and making contour data usable for engineering

Item 5, vertical relief, adds contours and spot elevations to the ALTA survey, and it is the most basic piece of information a civil engineer needs before grading or drainage design can begin. The standard says the surveyor depicts elevation and contours along with the data source, contour interval, datum, and benchmark "when appropriate," but that phrase should read as an instruction to the engineer, not a promise from the surveyor. LiDAR, flown from a drone or aircraft, suits large tracts, wooded or inaccessible terrain, swamps, and highway corridors; drone-based LiDAR can cover two acres or more with high accuracy and captures millions of elevation points, which makes it the right tool when the engineer needs a broad terrain model fast. Ground topography, collected with a total station, GPS, or levels, works better on smaller sites that need fine-grained detail: drainage ditches, minor elevation changes, ADA-compliant sidewalks, curbs, inlets, and grade breaks in urban or restricted areas where LiDAR isn't practical. Many projects use a combination of both, and the civil engineer's job is to describe what the design needs and let the surveyor choose the method, not the other way around. On HUD-financed multifamily projects, topography is a required scope, so Item 5 is a mandatory item on those jobs. Before fieldwork starts, the engineer should put contour interval, vertical datum, benchmark, coordinate system, and delivery format into the Table A request in writing, and confirm the data will arrive as a digital drawing file in a coordinate system that matches the design environment, so the grading plan and the survey stay in agreement without a separate reconciliation step.

Item 11 (underground utilities): the survey's depiction as a starting point, not a clearance

Item 11 brings utility evidence onto the ALTA survey, and after ground elevation, it is the next physical unknown a civil engineer has to resolve before design. The 2026 standards state the limitation directly: without excavation, the exact location of underground features cannot be accurately, completely, and reliably shown. If a project needs more certainty than that, it should scope a separate utility investigation, and the civil engineer, not the surveyor, decides whether that step is necessary. It identifies utility entry points and rough corridors early enough to shape site layout, because where a service line enters the site can rule out where a foundation goes. It flags underground utility evidence from plans or private locate markings, adding to what the base standard already requires, which under Section 5.E.iv includes above-ground evidence such as manholes, valves, and poles within ten feet of the boundary that anchor the underground trace on the drawing. The decision that falls to the engineer is whether the project needs only transaction-level utility evidence or whether grading, foundation, or utility connection design demands engineering-grade subsurface utility engineering, commonly called SUE. That answer determines whether Item 11 stands on its own or needs to be paired with a separate scope of work.

Item 3 (flood zone) and the regulatory decisions it anchors before any grading or stormwater work begins

Item 3 scales from the Flood Insurance Rate Map to place the property within its FEMA flood zone, and it plots the flood boundary graphically on the survey. Without it, a civil engineer designs stormwater management, freeboard, finished floor elevations, and detention sizing without a confirmed regulatory baseline to design against. The surveyor notes the applicable FEMA flood zone or zones and plots the boundary by scaling from the FIRM, because lenders need this step to assess flood-insurance obligations before closing. For the civil engineer, the value runs deeper than closing requirements: Item 3 establishes which regulatory regime governs the site before any design assumption gets locked into a set of drawings. It shapes finished floor elevation, setting whether the building must sit above base flood elevation and by how much. It shapes stormwater detention and conveyance, since a floodplain designation can restrict fill, impervious cover, or outfall locations. It shapes grading strategy, since fill that displaces flood volume may require compensatory storage elsewhere on site. And it shapes permit sequencing, since a site may need a CLOMR or a LOMR before a grading permit can even be issued. A site that straddles a flood zone boundary shows the value of Item 3 most clearly: the graphic plot marks exactly which portion of the developable area carries the flood designation, and that line can shape the building footprint before the architect draws anything.

Item 20 (encroachment summary table): what the 2026 addition lets civil engineers see at a glance

Item 20 is new to the 2026 standards, and it is the single most consequential addition for civil engineers reviewing a site. The conditions in that table are not new information. Sections 5 and 6 already require them to be shown on the plat, so Item 20 doesn't expand what the surveyor finds or change the surveyor's liability. What it changes is visibility: an encroachment that previously required careful reading of survey notes scattered across a drawing now appears in one table, cross-referenced to its location. For a civil engineer, that changes how a site gets assessed. Fences, walls, or buildings that cross a boundary line appear with a location reference, so the engineer can triage which encroachments affect grading or the building envelope without parsing the full drawing line by line. Pavement, structures, or utilities encroaching on an easement corridor get flagged before design starts, heading off a redesign that would otherwise surface during permitting. And the table creates a documented record, so the team can coordinate with the title company and attorney on whether an encroachment has to be resolved before construction begins. Item 20 is optional and negotiable, but on a complex infill or redevelopment site, where the density of existing conditions raises the odds of a conflict, it should be treated as close to a default request.

Items 6 and 7 (zoning setbacks and building dimensions) and the site constraints they establish before the civil plan takes shape

Items 6 and 7 together define the envelope you have to design within. Item 6 maps regulatory setback lines onto the survey drawing, and Item 7 measures the buildings already standing on the site. Between them, they establish what space is available, what has to be preserved, and where new improvements can go. Item 6 works from a zoning report the client supplies: under Item 6(a), the surveyor lists zoning facts, including classification, setbacks, height, floor area ratio, and parking requirements, and under Item 6(b), the surveyor graphically draws the setback lines, but only where doing so requires no interpretation of the ordinance. The surveyor doesn't read and interpret the zoning code, so the civil engineer has to supply or arrange that zoning report. Parking requirements listed under Item 6 flow directly into the site plan: required counts and dimensional standards shape drive-aisle layout, stormwater impervious area calculations, and ADA accessible route design. Item 7 covers the buildings already on site: the surveyor measures building footprints under 7(a), computes square footage under 7(b), and measures building height under 7(c). On redevelopment sites in particular, the engineer can check the measured dimensions from Item 7 against setbacks and coverage limits for a proposed addition or new structure, a calculation that as-built drawings of unknown vintage can't be trusted to support.

Items 1 (monuments), 4 (gross area), 8 (site features), and 19 (aerial imagery features) as supporting requests that prevent downstream gaps

Four more items round out a complete Table A request, and each protects a specific engineering decision from having to be revisited once fieldwork is done, even though none of them draws the same attention as topography, utilities, flood zone, or encroachments. Item 1 covers monuments placed at boundary corners: the surveyor sets or witnesses markers at major corners unless the corner is already marked or referenced by existing monuments nearby. For construction staking, the layout crew needs identifiable corners on the ground, and a survey that never set monuments pushes that work onto a separate mobilization later. Civil engineers need that confirmed figure for density calculations, floor area ratio compliance, stormwater design ratios, and subdivision plat preparation, and substituting a tax record area or a GIS estimate risks a number that doesn't match the surveyed boundary. Item 8 covers substantial site features observed in the field: parking areas, drives, fences, retaining walls, signs, and similar improvements that affect grading design, access alignment, and utility routing. On developed sites, these features often appear in a concept plan before a site visit confirms whether they exist or what condition they're in, so the survey checks the assumptions already baked into early design. Item 19 covers substantial features observed in aerial imagery, and the 2026 standards attach real conditions to it: the surveyor has to agree with the client in writing on the imagery source, date, and licensing costs, and has to disclose accuracy limitations to the insurer, lender, and client before the survey happens. Boundary features, and features near boundary or setback lines, are excluded from imagery-based methods entirely, so if you rely on Item 19, know that it has nothing to say about anything close to the property edge.

Coordinating Table A scope with the surveyor, the project team, and the construction document schedule

Choosing the right items only pays off if the request reaches the surveyor in a form that can actually be acted on. The civil engineer who assembles the Table A request, rather than passing along a generic list handed over by the buyer or the title company, sits in the best position to prevent the gaps described above, because coordination matters as much as item selection. Before the survey contract is signed, requirements should be gathered from every team member, lender, title company, architect, attorney, and consolidated into a single written list; requests that trickle in one at a time risk getting priced twice or missed entirely because everyone assumed someone else had already asked. The engineer should confirm directly with the surveyor whether Item 5 contour data will meet design needs or whether a separate topographic survey makes more sense, because engineering work often calls for a specific contour interval, a named vertical datum, or more detail at curbs and inlets than a default delivery provides. You should specify coordinate system and vertical datum in writing so survey deliverables drop directly into the firm's CAD environment, and you should request the survey as a digital drawing file in a format the firm's design tools can use, because a paper or PDF-only delivery forces retracing that introduces error. Timing matters just as much as content: the ALTA survey should be ordered early enough that its findings can shape the concept plan, because a survey that arrives after grading or utility design is already underway can only report conflicts, not prevent them. Where a phased delivery is possible, the findings that sit on the critical path, easement strips, encroachments, flood zone boundaries, utility corridors, should get priority in the field schedule. Scope should stay open to amendment as plans change: a new parking structure, an acquired adjacent lot, or a changed curb cut can each call for items that weren't part of the original request, and the surveyor can usually accommodate that through an amendment if notified promptly. And where months have passed since fieldwork, the engineer should flag to the team that demolition, utility work, or grading may have altered conditions the survey originally captured, particularly for Item 11 and Item 8 data that may no longer reflect the site as it stands. Handled this way, Table A is the civil engineer's own instrument, ordered on the engineer's terms, timed to the design schedule, and built to avoid the remobilization costs and delays that follow from treating it as an afterthought.