ADU Surveys in Alameda, CA

Alameda's ADU checklist reads mild at first — the city "may request a property survey or title report" rather than mandating one — but its site-plan content list is specific: property lines with the distance from street curb to front and street-side lines, drainage ways and access easements, permeable and non-permeable areas with square footages for stormwater accounting, every tree with its circumference, and, for construction within 5 feet of a property line, the footprints and heights of structures on adjacent lots. Behind those Victorians and Craftsmans, lot lines shared for a century with the neighbor's garage make that adjacent-structure requirement a real one, and easements — typically buried in the title report rather than visible on the ground — are exactly what our record research surfaces before they surface themselves during plan check.

The island's flat terrain hides the other reason elevation data matters here. With a foot or two of total relief on most lots, drainage direction is decided by inches, and adding an ADU plus its paths and patio changes the impervious picture the city's checklist tracks. Our laser-scanned site survey captures dense spot elevations across the lot in the same visit as the boundary work. Alameda also runs a distinctive FEMA regime: much of the island sits in a Special Flood Hazard Area, and the city allows detached ADUs to exceed the normal height limit specifically to meet FEMA flood-safety elevations — which makes documented existing grades and finished-floor elevations part of the design conversation from day one. One more local quirk worth knowing early: an unusually deep lot can earn a zero side and rear setback if the ADU sits at least 75 feet back from the front property line.

Deliverables are a stamped site plan base map with easements of record, staked corners, and a layered DWG. Where FEMA compliance requires it, we prepare elevation documentation from the same field data.