Parcel Maps in San Rafael, CA

San Rafael publishes what it wants on a tentative map, and the list is a survey scope of work. The map must be prepared by a registered civil engineer or licensed surveyor, drawn at not less than one inch equals one hundred feet, with a vicinity map at one inch equals three hundred feet. It must show elevations or contours at ten-foot intervals to establish slopes and high and low points, with the City Engineer able to require more contour detail. It must show the location, dripline, trunk size, and species of every existing tree. It comes in with a recently prepared preliminary title report and a geotechnical soils report, and an approved tentative map has to be filed for recordation within two years unless an extension is granted.

Whether a split is even feasible often depends on the hillside rules before it depends on zoning arithmetic. On lots with an average slope of twenty-five percent or greater, or in the hillside residential designations, Chapter 14.12 applies: the natural state requirement withholds twenty-five percent of the site plus the average slope percentage from development, ridgeline protections restrict building within a hundred vertical feet of significant ridgelines, and height is measured from existing grade. On the flatter ground of Terra Linda, Gerstle Park, Sun Valley, and the Bret Harte area, the constraints are more conventional but the boundary work is not: mid-century subdivision maps, fences set by convenience, and utility easements that were never plotted accurately.

We start with record research and monument recovery, resolve the boundary, then build the map. Our laser scanner earns its place here because a single mobilization captures the contours, the trees with their driplines and trunk sizes, the driveways, and the existing improvements the tentative map has to show. Maps are checked by the Marin County Surveyor and recorded by the Marin County Recorder, both in San Rafael. See our San Rafael topographic surveys, and parcel map vs tract map in California.