Condo Conversions in Kensington, CA

Let’s be candid about scope: Kensington is a small, unincorporated hillside community that is overwhelmingly single-family, so condominium conversions here are occasional rather than routine — typically a duplex or a small multi-unit building whose owners want to sell the units separately. What makes Kensington different from its incorporated neighbors is that there is no city hall in the process. Because the community is unincorporated, Contra Costa County planning handles the entitlement and the county surveyor and recorder in Martinez review and record the map. The legal framework is the same as anywhere in California: a subdivision map processed under the Subdivision Map Act, paired with a condominium plan prepared under the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act that defines each unit, the common area, and any exclusive-use areas such as decks, parking spaces, or storage.

The condominium plan is where survey precision matters most, because unit boundaries in a conversion follow the existing building — walls, floors, and ceilings that were framed decades ago and are rarely square or level. Kensington’s mid-century homes sit on steep lots along narrow streets, and buildings on slopes accumulate settlement and racking over time; the Blakemont slide area on the El Cerrito border is the canonical local reminder that this ground moves. We capture the entire structure with our Trimble terrestrial laser scanner in a single visit — millions of survey-grade points covering every wall plane, floor elevation, and ceiling height — so the as-built survey behind the condo plan reflects the building as it actually stands, not as the original plans assumed.

From that point cloud we produce the plan diagrams, the boundary and easement resolution for the map, and the exhibits county staff need to review the application. Because filings run through the Contra Costa County recorder, we coordinate map check with the county surveyor’s office from the start, which keeps an already unusual process from stalling on formatting or procedural questions.