Los Angeles County · Land Surveying
Pico Rivera sits between two rivers — the Rio Hondo on one side, the San Gabriel on the other — where the towns of Pico and Rivera merged into one city in 1958. Its postwar tracts replaced citrus and walnut farms, and its parcels still feel both histories.
Tract lot, channel-side yard, or industrial building — tell us the parcel and we will shape the scope. Call (213) 787-3342 to talk it through.
The land between the rivers was famously fertile — citrus, avocados, and walnuts filled it after the railroads arrived in the 1870s — and when the postwar boom came, developers converted the farms to tract neighborhoods almost overnight. The 1958 incorporation vote joined Pico and Rivera as the county's 61st city, and the merged grid has been working ever since.
The rivers, now engineered flood-control channels, give the city its edges and some of its survey questions: channel-side yards whose rear lines meet district rights-of-way, drainage easements recorded across the old farmland, and industrial parcels that grew up along the corridors. Inside the grid, the docket is classic postwar — fences, conversions, additions, escrow checks.
Retracement here reads the usual two layers: consistent postwar tract maps above, farm-era parcel fabric beneath. Most lots resolve cleanly from the tract record; the exceptions cluster where subdivisions met old grove boundaries or rail spurs, and there the deeper research pays. Corners consumed by street rebuilds are restored and documented with the county.
Channel-adjacent parcels add the district layer: flood-control rights-of-way and drainage easements whose recorded lines rarely match the fence at the top of the levee slope. We retrace both the parcel boundary and the district's edge so owners know exactly what is theirs, what is encumbered, and what belongs to the channel. Industrial owners along the corridors get the same treatment at plant scale.
Six services carry most Pico Rivera work — lines and corners first, terrain and documentation where parcels need it:
The projects that bring Pico Rivera owners in usually involve:
Any of these focus the research and firm the number:
We pull the tract map and, where needed, the farm-era records beneath it, confirm scope with you, then field-measure and deliver. Steps on our how it works page.
Adjacent parcels, yes — channel-side lots end at recorded lines against the flood-control district's right-of-way, and those lines seldom match the fence at the levee. For everyone else the rivers are geography, not boundary. We retrace the recorded edge so channel-side owners know exactly where their yard legally stops.
Usually none — the tract maps govern cleanly. The farm era surfaces at the seams: odd angles where subdivisions met grove boundaries, drainage easements recorded for irrigation days, and occasional sliver parcels. When a retracement finds something the tract map cannot explain, the farm fabric usually can.
Find out exactly where it falls — that is the survey's contribution. We plot the recorded easement against your lot and improvements so you can see what it actually touches before responding. What the district can require within its easement is a legal question, best answered with the geometry in hand.
Measured against the located rear line, that stops being a matter of opinion. We establish the line — alley right-of-way included — and report the true distance. Whether the current setback conforms is the city's standard to apply; the survey supplies the number it gets applied to.
Typically an ALTA/NSPS survey scoped to the lender's checklist: boundary, improvements, easements plotted in place, access, and parking. Corridor parcels here can carry rail-era and drainage instruments worth seeing mapped. Send the title commitment and we will convert it into a fixed scope.
We serve property throughout Pico Rivera and across Los Angeles County — request a survey quote for any parcel in the area.
Survey scope and deliverables depend on title records, site conditions, and what your project requires. Call (213) 787-3342 to discuss the property and the survey you need.
Call Southern California Land Surveyors at (213) 787-3342 with the address and project, and we will scope the survey to your parcel's layer.