Monument Preservation in Albany, CA

Albany packs a lot of boundary into a small footprint: a compact grid of modest lots where side yards are measured in single-digit feet and an inch of setback can decide whether an addition gets approved. That precision all traces back to street monuments — the brass disks and pipes at intersections from which block after block of small lots are reestablished. When Albany repaves a street or a utility district trenches a main, Business & Professions Code §8771 requires a licensed surveyor to reference any monument in the way and file a Corner Record with the Alameda County Surveyor before it is disturbed, then reset it and file again after construction. Because each Albany monument controls so many tightly-dimensioned lots, one destroyed disk propagates uncertainty across dozens of properties where inches genuinely matter.

We provide monument preservation for public works and utility projects throughout Albany’s flatland grid, and for work on Albany Hill — the city’s one piece of steep ground, where monuments are fewer and slope makes replacement harder. The work is straightforward when done in order: records research at the county, a field sweep of the project limits, pre-construction referencing and filings, resets after paving. Done out of order — or not at all — it becomes a retracement bill that dwarfs the preservation cost, typically landing on whoever disturbed the monument.

Our Trimble terrestrial laser scanner makes the small-city scale work in your favor: we can scan an entire Albany project corridor in the same mobilization that references its monuments, capturing every monument in context with curbs, pavement, and frontage improvements at millimeter density. The point cloud strengthens each reset and hands the project reusable pre-construction surface documentation without a return trip.