Who are we?

Our history began in Christchurch in 1932, when James Leonard Davis registered and founded the business J. L. Davis Registered Surveyor and Claims Assessor. In 1960 Gavin Ogilvie established the structural and civil engineering arms of the company. The company became J L Davis Son Ogilvie and Associates.

We became Davis Ogilvie & Partners Ltd. in 1987, and since then we have expanded by amalgamating with established local businesses including Cowan and Holmes from Timaru and Greymouth, and Gourdie and Ward from Nelson.

Today Davis Ogilvie (DO) provides a complete range of multi-disciplinary engineering, surveying and development planning services within one company. By covering structural, civil and geotechnical engineering, land surveying, resource management and environmental science we are able to simplify construction, design and development using collaborative processes to create better solutions for our clients.

We have teams in Christchurch, Nelson, Greymouth and Timaru experienced in sustainable land and property development. Not only will their expertise add value to your project, you will also benefit from our enduring relationships with other professional consultancies throughout New Zealand.

How we use Canterbury Maps?

As a multi-disciplinary company all departments use Canterbury Maps on a daily basis. The services provided by Canterbury Maps assists our team by providing current and historical information, which supports our investigations. 

Further information specifically about how each department uses the Canterbury Maps website is outlined below.

The surveying team use the Aerial photos to identify our sites so we can undertake a preliminary traffic assessment before we go onto the site. The aerial identifies important feature such as busy areas, school and other hazards that allow us to prepare the traffic management plan before we send the field team to the site.

Our survey team also use the Christchurch City Benchmark Network maps to locate many of the CCC benchmarks in and around the sites we are working on. This allows us to undertake our topographical survey in terms of the network which Council requires.  The website also provides access to the Selwyn District Council planning maps which the surveyors and planning teams use to prepare their Resource Consents.

The geotechnical and environmental teams find the well records service very useful and also the historical aerial map overlay.

The Structural team uses the Canterbury Maps website to look at the historical use of a site, when it was it was first developed and when alterations were made to the property.

The civil team uses several of the services provided by Canterbury Maps in order to find information on the following areas: water services location, resource consent information, water well / bore information, aerial imagery for sites, LIDAR information, District planning zones, Land & Property information, liquefaction susceptibility, Environment Canterbury – Natural Resources Regional Plan (NRRP), Environment Canterbury – proposed Canterbury Land & Water Regional Plan (pLWRP) and Water Quality in Canterbury.