Survey Works provides subdivision and plat surveys in San Antonio and the surrounding counties for developers, landowners, estate planners, attorneys, and builders. This is the survey work behind formally dividing, adjusting, or combining legal parcels. The deliverable is a sealed plat drawing, prepared by a licensed land surveyor, that the reviewing jurisdiction approves and the Bexar County Clerk records as part of the public record governing the land.
Plat work covers several named scopes, including subdivision surveys, replats, amending plats, and lot line adjustments. Which one applies depends on what is changing, but the survey component stays the same job: measure the parent tract, reconcile the record, and prepare a drawing the jurisdiction will accept.
How subdividing land works in Bexar County
Where the parcel sits decides who reviews the plat. Inside the San Antonio city limits and the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction, plats are filed with the city's Development Services Department. Major plats go to the Planning Commission, while minor plats of four or fewer lots that create no new streets, utilities, or drainage improvements can be approved by the department directly. In unincorporated Bexar County outside any city's ETJ, plats run through the county's Public Works Department and are approved by Commissioners Court. In every case the approved plat is recorded with the Bexar County Clerk, and from that point it governs the legal description of every lot inside it.
The surveyor's product is what moves through that pipeline. Survey Works establishes the boundary of the parent tract, lays out the proposed lots and easements, and prepares the plat drawing to the reviewing jurisdiction's checklist, coordinating with the civil engineer wherever drainage or utility design is part of the package.
Whether one lot can become two comes down to the zoning district's minimum lot size and dimensions in the city's Unified Development Code, access and utility service for the new lot, and the plat process above. When those requirements line up, the plat process is the path from a planned split to a recorded one, and the survey is the piece of it Survey Works runs.
When San Antonio clients order plat work
A developer platting new sections on the far West Side or up the 281 corridor orders subdivision surveys as the foundation for site planning and phased construction. A family splitting inherited acreage near Elmendorf or La Vernia orders a plat so each heir's tract can be sold or built on independently. Two neighbors fixing a line that decades of informal use have blurred order a lot line adjustment. A builder holding an irregular lot orders a replat so the legal description matches the project the city will permit.
Replats and the 30-day clock
As of 2026, Texas law gives the reviewing authority 30 days to approve, approve with conditions, or disapprove a complete plat application, and a plat that is not disapproved within that window is approved by operation of law. Since a 2019 change in state law, a residential replat requires a public hearing only when it needs a variance or exception. When no variance is involved, the city skips the hearing and mails notice to the nearby owners in the original subdivision after approval.
The 30-day clock starts on a complete application, and completeness is where plat timelines stretch, through utility coordination, drainage review, and the checklist items the jurisdiction requires before the application is formally filed. Our job is to keep the survey and drawing side off that critical path.
What drives timeline and cost on San Antonio plat work
Cost on plat work is driven by the size and record complexity of the parent tract, the number of lots being created, the jurisdiction's specific requirements, and how much engineering coordination the project carries. A two-lot split of an already-platted suburban parcel and a phased subdivision in a growth corridor are both plat jobs, and they are scoped very differently.
The fastest plat projects are the ones where the boundary work is already solid, and when the parent tract needs a full retracement first, that stage becomes the schedule driver and starts with a boundary survey of the parent tract.
Survey Works has run subdivision, plat, and lot line adjustment work across Texas for over 10 years, from single-lot adjustments between neighbors to multi-phase developments, and our San Antonio plat work spans Bexar, Comal, Kendall, and Wilson Counties, including Boerne, Bulverde, Spring Branch, and the growth corridors around Alamo Ranch and Loop 1604. Every project runs through the same process, with the jurisdiction's filing requirements and the project's engineering context built in.
For a subdivision, replat, or lot line adjustment anywhere in the San Antonio area, Survey Works has the field and records expertise to prepare the plat the jurisdiction will accept and the project requires.