February 2026 Sunriver Scene - Flipbook - Page 28
‘X’ marks the spot: Tracking down property boundaries in Sunriver
By SROA Natural
Resources Department
Knowing your property
boundaries is an essential part
of home ownership anywhere,
including in Sunriver. Having
an accurate understanding of
where your property begins
and ends helps avoid violations
of the community’s rules and
regulations, prevents landscape
and construction encroachments (both onto your property, and yours onto others’
which could be costly to correct
later) and is a fundamental way
to protect your investment.
In Sunriver, property boundaries can be somewhat hard
to find and in a way, that’s by
design. The Design Committee
Manual of Rules & Procedures
(DCM), one of the founding
documents of Sunriver, creates
standards that “allow privacy
on residential lots while maintaining a sense of shared space
and community in common areas… all architectural elements
shall be subordinate to the
forest and natural landscape to
the maximum extent possible.”
(DCM Sec. 1.01)
These ideals have translated
into unique rules for the community such as limited fencing
and generous setbacks. While
these guidelines limit context
clues to the naked eye, there are
lots of tools and resources available that will help you locate
property boundaries anywhere
in Sunriver.
Generally, the most reliable
way to identify boundaries is
to expose your property pins.
Pins are 5/8-inch rebar stakes
that have been set in the ground
by the original surveyors of
Sunriver while it was being developed in the late 1960s. Pins
serve as monuments marking
the corners or curves of tax
lots. There are typically four
pins per residential property
in Sunriver, but there can be
more depending on the shape
of your lot. Because the pins
are meant to be immovable,
they are usually 30” in length
and buried deep, with just a
few inches poking out of the
ground. Some pins have yellow
plastic caps on them, and some
have been buried completely
over time by built-up soil and
debris.
Now that you know these
monuments exist, how do you
find them?
Start by visiting the Deschutes
County Dial website, which
has tax lot maps with property
dimensions available to the
public for every property in
Deschutes County. It also may
be helpful to have a site plan
of your property handy – there
Please donate your cans & bottles!
Property pins, usually a piece of rebar driven into the ground, are often near power boxes. It is a
property owner’s responsibility to know where the pins are and their property boundary.
may be extra measurements off
structures listed there. Contact the SROA Community
Development Department to
obtain any available site plans
on record for your property, if
you don’t have one already.
With dimensions to guide
you, it’s time to head out to
your property with a tape
measure and shovel. If you have
access to a metal detector, bring
it along. The rear pins of your
property are often easier to
find, so start there. Once you
find one pin, you can find the
rest using the measurements
from your tax lot map or site
plan.
Often in Sunriver, pins are
located near utility lines or
assets. If you’re having trouble
finding a pin, look for landmarks like sewer cleanouts,
manhole covers, or electrical
boxes and search nearby. If you
are in close proximity to a pin,
a metal detector can take you
the rest of the way.
One last tip for Sunriver
owners is to look out for remnants of flagging that staff may
have placed on vegetation,
stakes or actual pins, to mark
approximate boundaries between private properties and
Bin Location: East side of the Sunriver Marketplace
18160 Cottonwood Rd. Sunriver
SROA commons. This temporary flagging helps staff and
contractors conduct various
projects on commons, like
ladder fuels reduction.
Check out www.sunriver
owners.org/lfr for info on flagging colors and what they
mean.
These methods can often
result in the successful location
of property pins, but above
all, the best way to verify your
boundaries is to hire a licensed
surveyor to identify them.
Ultimately, private property
owners have the sole responsibility for knowing and verifying
their property boundaries.
As an owner, you are accountable for everything that
happens on your square of the
patchwork quilt that makes up
Sunriver.
From vegetation management to equipment storage
to construction projects, it’s
always valuable to ensure that
what happens on your square,
stays there.
COME FOR A VACATION...
STAY FOR THE LIFESTYLE!
Keith Petersen
541.815.0906
keith@isellsunriver.com
SERVING SUNRIVER FOR OVER 27 YEARS!
Page 28
FEBRUARY 2026 SUNRIVER SCENE
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