Condo Conversions in San Francisco, CA

San Francisco regulates condominium conversion more tightly than any city in California, and the surveyor's map sits at the center of the process. Conversions of existing buildings run under Subdivision Code Article 9 through the County Surveyor's office in Public Works' Bureau of Street-Use and Mapping. The annual conversion lottery was suspended by ordinance in 2013 in favor of the Expedited Conversion Program; that program itself was paused during the Pakdel litigation and resumed accepting applications in April 2024. The route most owners use today is the two-unit bypass: once each unit's owner (holding at least a 25 percent interest) has occupied the building for a year, a two-unit building can convert without a lottery. New-construction condominiums are a different animal — they are ordinary subdivisions under the Map Act, not Article 9 conversions — but they go through the same office with the same map standards.

Either way, the work product is a tentative and final parcel map (for four or fewer units) or subdivision map, plus the condominium plan that defines each unit in three dimensions. Public Works' map checklist requires ties to at least two city monument lines with two monuments each, CCSF-CS13 as the basis of bearings, and a title report, and the current fee schedule puts map review for a small condo conversion in the five figures — so the map has to be right the first time. Our terrestrial laser scanner makes the unit geometry exact: we scan every unit, common area, and the building exterior, and the unit boundaries, floor elevations, and building footprint on the plan come from the point cloud rather than from architect's drawings that may not match the building as built. Where a lot line has never been surveyed, we resolve it against the monument lines and recovered evidence and file the Record of Survey if one is needed.

We coordinate with the conversion attorney and the title company through BSM review and recording with the Assessor-Recorder. Deliverables are the tentative and final map, the condominium plan exhibits, and a point cloud your architect can reuse. Related: San Francisco as-built surveys and San Francisco parcel maps.