Parcel Maps in Albany, CA

Albany's compact grid of modest bungalow lots makes it a place where SB 9 interest is high but feasibility is unforgiving. The statute allows a ministerial urban lot split in single-family zones, but each resulting parcel must meet SB 9's minimum lot size and be no less than forty percent of the original — and on Albany's small lots, many candidates simply do not have the area. That is not a reason to skip the analysis; it is a reason to do it precisely. We resolve the actual boundary from recorded evidence and found monuments, because on a lot where the margin is a few hundred square feet, the difference between the fence line and the deed line can decide the outcome. Albany Hill is the exception to the city's flat topography, and the handful of larger sloped parcels there raise conventional hillside questions — access grades, buildable area — that the flatland grid never sees.

Divisions that do pencil proceed under the Subdivision Map Act: an SB 9 split through the City's ministerial process, or a conventional tentative parcel map with conditions of approval for other configurations, followed in either case by a map or document recorded with the Alameda County Recorder. Lot line adjustments are the quieter workhorse in Albany — with setbacks this tight, shifting a shared boundary a foot or two between neighbors can legalize an existing garage encroachment or make a remodel approvable, without any division at all.

Our Trimble terrestrial laser scanner is well matched to Albany's scale. One short mobilization captures the whole parcel and its street frontage — structures, fences, walks, and grades — at survey-grade accuracy, so the split exhibit, the setback dimensions, and the topographic survey base all come from a single point cloud with no return trips.