A Ten-Foot Shift Between Two 1925 Lots
An owner holds two contiguous 50-ft by 120-ft lots, Lots 7 and 8 of a tract map recorded in 1925, in a city that now requires a 6,000-sq-ft minimum area and 55-ft minimum width. Lot 7 has a 1948 house; Lot 8 is vacant but carries the driveway that serves Lot 7. The owner wants to move the common line 10 ft, taking 10 ft from Lot 8 and adding it to Lot 7, so he can build a garage that would otherwise sit 2 ft inside the side-yard setback. He has filed nothing. The city planning counter tells him a lot line adjustment is exempt and he can just record a deed at the county recorder. The county surveyor's office says a parcel map is required.
1. Is a parcel map required for this lot line adjustment?
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Probably not a parcel map, but certainly not a bare deed either.
Government Code §66412(d) exempts from the Subdivision Map Act a lot line adjustment between four or fewer existing adjoining parcels, where land taken from one parcel is added to an adjoining parcel and no greater number of parcels is created than existed. Here: two adjoining parcels, one taking, one giving, still two parcels - the exemption fits on its face.
But:
- The exemption is from the Map Act, not from local ordinance. Many cities require a lot line adjustment application, findings, and a recorded certificate or resolution; the county recorder will not accept a deed that merely recites a boundary shift.
- A lot line adjustment moves a line; it does not create new lots, and it cannot be used to create a parcel from land that is not already a parcel.
- The likely real obstacle is the resulting 40-ft-wide Lot 8, which increases an existing nonconformity. Expect the city to condition or deny on that ground, and expect the planning counter's advice to be incomplete.
2. What is Lot 8's legal status, and what risk does the driveway create?
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Lot 8 is a lot of record created by a 1925 recorded map; it is substandard today but its creation predates the current zoning. The Subdivision Map Act protects lots of record in existence before March 1, 1972 from being retroactively made unbuildable by later ordinances, but that protection has conditions and does not override the local agency's authority over a lot line adjustment.
Before any application, obtain a Certificate of Compliance under Government Code §66499.35 confirming that Lots 7 and 8 are separate legal parcels. Without one, a title company, lender, or building department may treat the two lots as one.
The driveway is the merger risk. Under Government Code §66424.6, contiguous parcels held by the same owner can be merged by the local agency after notice and hearing, and a vacant lot serving only as access to the improved lot is the classic fact pattern for a finding that the parcels are being used as a single unit. If a merger has occurred or is declared, there is no line to adjust.
3. If the city refuses to approve the adjustment, what are the owner's options, and what is your role?
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Options, in order of cost:
- Administrative appeal to the planning commission and then the city council; lot line adjustment denials are usually appealable to the governing body.
- Certificate of Compliance: §66499.35 requires the local agency to issue one for a lot lawfully created, and a refusal is reviewable. If the agency will not issue it for Lot 8, that is a separate and cleaner fight than the adjustment.
- Redesign: shift less than 10 ft, or obtain a variance or setback exception for the garage.
- Judicial review by administrative writ, after the administrative remedies are exhausted.
Your role is factual, not advocacy: a current survey showing the record lots, the existing improvements, and the proposed line; a written statement of the buildable width each lot would have; and, if the case goes to hearing, a map that makes the nonconformity obvious. Do not record anything until the city's approval instrument is in hand.