ADU Surveys in Brentwood, CA

Brentwood's published ADU handout is brief, but one requirement stands out and it is utility-shaped: detached ADU utilities may not simply extend from the primary house — the unit must connect to the property's private lateral or take a separate main connection, which puts Public Works and real utility routing into a project most cities treat as an afterthought. Locating the existing lateral, the cleanouts, and the feasible trench path is site documentation work, and it belongs on the plan before design locks in a corner of the yard the sewer cannot reach economically. The city also requires a deed restriction recorded with the county before permit issuance, keeps ADU design matched to the primary dwelling, and issues no separate ADU addresses.

Brentwood's parcels carry a distinctive boundary story. The city is agricultural land in transition — orchard and row-crop parcels giving way to master-planned subdivisions — which produces two very different survey situations. In the newer subdivisions, lot corners are recent and recoverable, and a boundary verification is quick. On the older ag-edge parcels described by metes and bounds, the deed calls can be vague, the original surveys unrecorded, and the fences approximate — the same conditions that make East County boundary retracement genuinely difficult, pointed at a backyard ADU. Either way the state's 4-foot setbacks are measured from the resolved line, and field inspectors frequently require a surveyor to verify foundation forms against the approved plans before the pour. Our laser-scanned site survey establishes the boundary, maps structures, utilities, and the lateral routing question, and delivers a stamped base map your designer and Public Works can both work from.

Records run through the Contra Costa County Recorder in Martinez. Deliverables include staked corners and a layered DWG; for parcels headed toward a split as well as an ADU, our Brentwood parcel map services share the same boundary work.