Condo Conversions in Napa, CA

Napa has one of the strictest apartment conversion regimes in the region, and it is worth understanding before spending money on a map. Under Napa Municipal Code section 17.52.080, converting multifamily rental units to condominiums requires a condominium conversion use permit, and the number of units eligible in any year is set by a vacancy survey. Before September 1 each year the Planning Commission determines the multifamily vacancy rate from a sample of at least 80 percent of apartment communities over 20 units. If that rate is below 5 percent, a rental housing shortage exists and no conversions may occur in the upcoming annual cycle. Napa's rate has run well under that threshold for years; the Commission set the 2024 rate at 2.8 percent, and the city's last approved apartment conversions date to 2005, with those entitlements later expiring.

That gate applies to converting existing rental housing. It is not the whole condominium picture. New residential condominium projects, commercial and mixed-use condominium regimes, and buildings that were never rental housing follow the ordinary Subdivision Map Act path, with a map creating the project and a Davis-Stirling condominium plan defining each unit's boundaries, the common area, and any exclusive-use common area. Downtown Napa's mixed-use buildings, where a ground-floor commercial space and upper-floor residential units want separate ownership and financing, are the common version of this. We tell clients which track they are on at kickoff, in writing, rather than after the survey invoice.

The measuring is where our scanner earns its place. Napa's older brick and stone buildings have thick walls, out-of-square rooms, and floors that settled long before anyone thought about airspace boundaries, and the 2014 South Napa earthquake left many of them with retrofit work layered over original construction. One scanning visit captures the building in millions of points, and we draw unit boundaries from that cloud, choosing finished or structural surfaces with your project attorney. Maps and plans record with the Napa County Recorder after examination by the Napa County Surveyor. See also our Napa as-built surveys.