US Laws, Codes, Statutes & Cases

§ 55-290. Plane coordinates used in systems.

The plane coordinates of a point on the earth's surface, to be used in expressing the position or location of such point in the appropriate zone of these systems, shall be expressed in U.S. survey feet and decimals of a foot. One of these distances, to be known as the "x-coordinate," shall give the position in an east-and-west direction; the other, to be known as the "y-coordinate," shall give the position in a north-and-south direction. These coordinates shall be made to depend upon and conform to the coordinate values for the monumented points of the North American Horizontal Geodetic Control Network as published by the National Ocean Survey/National Geodetic Survey, or its successors, and whose plane coordinates have been computed on the systems defined in this chapter. Any such station may be used for establishing a survey connection to either Virginia Coordinate System.

When converting coordinates in the Virginia Coordinate System of 1983 from meters and decimals of a meter to feet and decimals of a foot, the U.S. survey foot factor (one foot equals 1200/3937 meters) shall be used. This requirement does not preclude the continued use of the International foot conversion factor (one foot equals 0.3048 meters) in those counties and cities where this factor was in use prior to July 1, 1992. The plat or plan shall contain a statement of the conversion factor used and the coordinate values of a minimum of two project points in feet.

(1946, p. 167; Michie Suppl. 1946, § 2849(3); 1984, c. 726; 1992, c. 1.)