Topographic Surveys in Lafayette, CA

Lafayette pairs some of the East Bay's most demanding residential review with some of its most demanding terrain. Hillside neighborhoods sit on the Orinda Formation — the weak sedimentary rock behind much of the region's landslide activity — and the city's design review process, including its ridgeline development rules, leans heavily on accurate existing-conditions data: contours, tree locations, visible ridgelines, and true building heights above grade. A topographic survey is where all of that starts. We deliver 1-foot contours, spot elevations, a digital terrain model, and layered DWG/DXF files that carry a project from design review through the geotechnical report and grading plan without remapping.

Lafayette's lots are large and heavily wooded, and many back onto Lafayette Creek or Las Trampas Creek, where top-of-bank location and creek setbacks become design constraints. Both conditions favor our Trimble terrestrial laser scanner. Under oak canopy, a conventional crew's few hundred shots leave the surface between them guessed; we capture millions of survey-grade points and filter vegetation from the point cloud to produce a bare-earth model that holds up under the trees and down the creek bank. One site visit covers the lot, the slope, and the corridor — no return trips when the architect asks for elevations on a wall we already scanned, because the answer is in the archived point cloud. For remodels where the existing house matters to design review, the same scan supports as-built documentation of ridge heights and floor elevations.

Lafayette records — records of survey, corner records — are filed with the Contra Costa County Recorder and examined by the County Surveyor. Along the Mt. Diablo Blvd corridor, where Lafayette holds most of its commercial stock, we also scope topographic mapping for site improvements and tenant work, with the same scan-based deliverables adapted to a commercial site plan.