Polk County Surveyor

Polk County Surveyor is a Surveyor in Bartow, FL. The Land Development Division works with county engineers, surveyors, attorneys, and planners to ensure land is developed in accordance with the Polk County Land Development Code, Comprehensive Plan, and Utilities Code. The division includes processing, the Current Planning Section, the Comprehensive Planning Section, the county engineer, and floodplain management. The processing staff accepts and coordinates all development applications for the Development Review Committee, Planning Commission, Land Use Hearing Officers, and Board of County Commissioners. They ensure the completeness of all applications prior to reviewing staff's sufficiency review, process payments, coordinate timely comments on applications, and close out completed reviews. The staff also scans records for permanent digital storage, prepares Board agenda items, and coordinates time extensions. Current Planning staff reviews land development requests such as planned developments, conditional uses, Land Development Code district changes, community development districts, validated legal non-conforming uses, and the research and implementation of land development trends in relation to the Comprehensive Plan implementation and growth pressures in the county. The office is located at 330 W Church St, about a tenth of a mile from the Polk County Courthouse and the Polk County Criminal Court, near the Polk County Sheriff's Office Main, Fort Blount Park, and just off Main Street and Broadway Avenue. The division is led by Director Benjamin J. Ziskal, AICP, CEcD, and is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Polk County's history dates back to the last ice age, with the area's first inhabitants, the Paleoindians, reaching the northern parts of Florida about 10,000 B.C. The county's first courthouse was constructed in 1867 in Bartow on land donated by cattle baron Jacob Summerlin, and by the 1880s, the development of industries including agriculture, citrus, cattle, and phosphate, along with the arrival of the railroad, caused a boom in land prices. The Polk County Board of County Commissioners, established by the Florida Constitution, serves as the legislative branch of county government, with five commissioners who must reside in their district, and its responsibilities include adopting ordinances and resolutions to establish public policy, levying authorized taxes and fees, planning and adopting a budget each fiscal year, and providing county services and infrastructure.