Land Acquisition and Planning

Property Assets and Real Estate Program

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources manages nearly a half million acres of public land comprising over 5000 miles of external property boundaries. As such, the Property Assets and Real Estate program is responsible for providing both acquisition and technical services for both pre and post-acquisition tasks involved with the purchase and management of department property boundaries. Duties include the storage, management, verification and dissemination of property records including deeds, plats, real estate agreements, leases and other relevant property information. Please feel free to contact our group with any questions or concerns about property related issues.

What we do:

  • Facilitate Board of Public works Approval for potential acquisitions
  • Manage potential department fee simple land acquisitions through POS Stateside in addition to disposals, exchanges and general department land conveyances throughout the State
  • Process, Record, Locate and Manage land records
  • Manage land survey contracts
  • Determine property rights and asset location including recovery of property boundaries
  • Convert analog map data to accurate digital (in CAD worksheet)
  • Update land records and agreements as new properties are acquired or protected through department funding or otherwise conveyed/exchanged
  • Enterprise GIS asset inventory and management
  • Database management, development and administration
  • Support the production of Inventory maps (Trail Guides, Hunting Guides, Wildland Maps, etc) and providing public web map services of department land interests

What tools we use:

  • GPS, Property Boundary Recovery
  • GIS, Enterprise GIS DBMS, Server, ArcGIS
  • CAD
  • DBMS (Relational Database Management System)

We provide information and services to:

  • Citizens of Maryland
  • Other Local, State and Federal government agencies (SDAT, SHA, MDOT, etc.)
  • Department of Natural Resources including Land Managers, Natural Resources Police, Executive Management
  • Office of the Attorney General
  • Land conservation organizations
  • Land surveyors