Los Angeles County · Land Surveying
San Fernando is the valley's namesake and oldest city — founded in 1874 on the railroad, kept independent by its own water, and incorporated in 1911 by a margin of eight votes. Today it is 2.37 square miles of compact lots completely surrounded by Los Angeles.
Townsite lot or mixed-use corner, the address and your goal are enough to start scoping. Call (213) 787-3342 to talk it through.
Charles Maclay's 1874 townsite predates nearly everything around it, and the city's independence is a point of local pride: while the rest of the valley annexed to Los Angeles for aqueduct water, San Fernando's own wells let it stay a city — narrowly, by eight votes in 1911. The result is an enclave with its own government, its own compact grid, and the valley's deepest municipal roots.
The parcels match the history: townsite lots at the core with records running to the 1870s, early-twentieth-century blocks around them, and a working mix of homes, corner commercial, and small industry. Compact dimensions keep the survey questions sharp — setbacks, fences, conversions, and mixed-use corners where inches decide what a permit allows.
Six services answer most San Fernando questions — lines and corners for the old grid, documentation for today's permits:
Retracing the Maclay grid is classic townsite work — an 1870s plat, generations of deeds, and evidence that survives in fragments. The compact city means nearby records are dense; block-wide research usually recovers what any single lot has lost, and restored corners are documented with the county. Newer blocks retrace from conventional twentieth-century maps.
Demand runs practical: ADU conversions on small lots, additions that must hold tight setbacks, corner properties mixing shop and home, and escrow questions when older houses change hands. Being surrounded by Los Angeles changes nothing about the records — boundaries live with the county — but it does make the city's own permitting the gate every project passes through.
Any of these focus the research and firm the scope:
We identify the parcel's era, assemble its record, confirm scope with you, then field-measure and deliver. Steps on the how it works page.
The questions that reach us from the enclave city:
We serve property throughout San Fernando and across Los Angeles County — request a survey quote for any parcel in the area.
Not at all — deeds, maps, and surveys are Los Angeles County records regardless of which city they fall in. Independence determines who issues your permits and provides services, not how your boundary is established. The retracement would read the same records either way.
Working the valley's oldest municipal record: the townsite plat, the deeds that divided its blocks, and every survey since. Original monuments are rare survivors, so corners are rebuilt from block-wide evidence and documented with the county. It is patient work with firm results.
It concentrates the evidence — in 2.37 square miles, the surrounding surveys and records are never far away, which helps research. What it does not do is shrink the stakes: compact lots make every measured inch matter more, not less. Efficient research, exacting fieldwork.
As one parcel, completely: boundary retraced, both structures located, and the measured relationships shown for whatever drives the survey — sale, refinance, or permit. Mixed-use corners are a San Fernando signature, and the deliverable is shaped to what the transaction or the city actually asks.
Indirectly — the townsite was carved from former mission lands, and the oldest chains acknowledge that ancestry. In practice your boundary resolves from the 1874 plat forward; the mission era is context we read only when an unusual line demands the deeper history.
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 era and the city's process.