Section 73. In cities which accept this section by vote of the city council or have accepted corresponding provisions of earlier laws, the mayor, with the approval of the city council, may in January in any year appoint three inhabitants thereof to be a board of survey. Of the members first appointed one shall serve for one year, one for two years, and one for three years from the first day of the following February, and thereafter, in January of each year, one member of said board shall be appointed to serve for three years from the first day of February after his appointment, or until his successor is qualified. If a vacancy occurs a member shall be appointed in the manner provided herein to serve for the remainder of the term. The city engineer shall act as clerk of the board. The compensation of the members of the board shall be fixed by the city council. In towns which accept this section or have accepted corresponding provisions of earlier laws, the selectmen shall constitute a board of survey.

No board of survey shall be established under this section after December thirty-first, nineteen hundred and thirty-six; but any such board established under this section or corresponding provisions of earlier laws or by a special act and existing on said date shall continue until its existence is terminated under section eighty-one B. Every board of survey of a city or town which has not accepted the provisions of sections eighty-one K to eighty-one GG, inclusive, or corresponding provisions of earlier laws, shall transmit to the register of deeds of the county or district in which such city or town is situated and to the recorder of the land court within sixty days after the first day of January, nineteen hundred and fifty-four, a statement that there is in such city or town a board of survey and that the city or town has not in the opinion of said board accepted said sections, including a copy certified by the clerk of such city or town of the vote accepting this section or corresponding provisions of earlier laws, or a reference to any special statute under which such board is established. Unless such statement is so transmitted the powers and duties of such board of survey shall be suspended in and in respect to such city or town, until such statement has been sent to such register of deeds and such register has entered such statement in a book in the same manner as is provided in section eighty-one X in the case of planning boards established under section eighty-one A.