Two licences, one set of drawings.

Most projects need two firms. A surveyor establishes where the property actually is; a civil engineer designs what happens on it. The seam between them is where schedules slip — and where a bad assumption gets drawn into a plan set that then has to survive plan check.

Ellis Three holds both licences in one office. Michael J. Knapton is licensed by the State of California as a Professional Engineer and as a Professional Land Surveyor. The boundary a grading plan is drawn against, and the grading plan itself, come from the same hand and tie to the same control. There is no handoff to manage, and no second firm to wait on.

The survey side of this practice has served property owners, developers and civil engineering firms throughout Southern California — boundary and topographic surveys, tentative and final maps, condominium conversions and construction staking — much of it as a team member to the engineers designing the site.

Ellis Three puts the civil engineering alongside that capability: the grading, drainage and storm water documents that take a site from raw parcel to an approved permit.

Constraints first. Drainage, setbacks, easements and access decide what a site can hold. We would rather establish that in the first week than discover it in the third submittal.

Drawn for the jurisdiction reviewing it. San Diego, Riverside and Imperial counties each have their own manuals, forms and water-quality requirements. A plan set is prepared for the desk it lands on, not to a generic template.

You talk to the licensee. This is a small practice by intention. The person who answers your questions is the person who stamps the drawings.