Los Angeles County · Land Surveying
San Dimas runs from freeway-close tract neighborhoods up into San Gabriel foothill terrain, with horse-zoned parcels, canyon edges, and the open space around Puddingstone Reservoir mixed in. Survey needs here range from a simple line stake to full slope mapping.
Foothill lot or flat tract, tell us what the project is and we will suggest the survey that answers it. Call (213) 787-3342 to talk it through.
Much of San Dimas is comfortable mid-century and later tract housing, but the city's northern reaches and pockets like Via Verde bring in terrain: larger lots, slopes, and properties zoned for horses, with corrals, barns, and arena pads that were often placed years ago without a survey. Owners call us when something changes — a sale, a fence or barn replacement, an addition, or a grading question the city wants answered.
The 1,800-acre Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park and Puddingstone Reservoir sit inside the city's southern portion, and Bonita Avenue's frontier-style old town anchors its center. For surveying purposes the practical divide is simpler: flat tract lots where the question is usually a line or a setback, and foothill or canyon-edge parcels where elevation and slope drive the scope.
On the valley floor, subdivisions recorded from the 1950s through the 1980s generally have workable record maps, and the job is confirming what survives on the ground — locating monuments, retracing the record geometry, and marking lines before fence, wall, or driveway projects. Where corners have been lost to street or utility work, restoring them can require filing a corner record with Los Angeles County.
Foothill parcels are a different exercise. Lot lines cross grade changes, usable areas are defined by slope, and additions or new barns can trigger grading and drainage review. A topographic survey maps the elevations and existing features; where slope itself is the constraint, hillside mapping gives designers and city reviewers the measured picture they need. Requirements vary by project — confirm specifics with the city; we supply the measurements those decisions rest on.
Six services cover most San Dimas requests. The first two deal with where lines are; the next two deal with what the ground does between them:
Requests from this corner of the east San Gabriel Valley commonly look like:
You do not need all of this, but each item sharpens the scope:
From there we pull the recorded tract map and nearby surveys, confirm the scope with you, and schedule the fieldwork. Deliverables and steps are described on our how it works page.
Usually the same fundamentals — reliable lines and corners — but over more ground. Corrals, barns, and arena pads are frequently placed by eye, so when ownership changes or fencing is replaced, staking the true line first avoids rebuilding improvements that turn out to sit over it. If a riding trail or access easement touches the parcel, we can locate it and show it on the map.
It maps the parcel's elevations, slopes, drainage paths, and existing improvements at the level of detail your engineer needs to design the grading — and it gives the reviewer a measured baseline. On steeper San Dimas lots we often map beyond the immediate work area so the plan reflects how water actually moves across the site.
Often, yes — tracts of that era were monumented to modern standards, and a fair number of the pipes and tags survive. Street rebuilds, driveway work, and utility trenching still take their toll, so we search for the record monuments first and retrace from what we find. Corners that must be re-set may require a corner record filing with the county.
Yes — boundary and terrain work are commonly scoped together on foothill parcels. The crew locates the lines and maps the topography in the same mobilization, which is generally more economical than ordering them separately.
The process is the same, but the adjoiner is a public agency rather than a neighbor, so the record research leans on the county's maps for the park lands. Marking your line clearly matters more, not less, when the other side is open space — it is the only visible statement of where your parcel ends.
We serve property throughout San Dimas 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 (213) 787-3342 with the address and what you are planning — fence, sale, ADU, or hillside project — and Southern California Land Surveyors will recommend a scope that fits.