Site Planner

Site Planner is a toolbar for putting a house on a real lot. You type an address, and the property line, setbacks, and zone arrive with the lot. Then you build a saved design there, move it into place, and check it against the lot’s rules, with a zoning report you can download as a PDF.

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Turn it on

Open the Plugins panel in the left sidebar. Site Planner is listed under Design & drawings. Click Install, and Procedural, which Site Planner’s designs and plans are made with, is installed alongside it. The bar appears at the top of the view area, over the 3D view and the 2D plan: Lot · Designs · Move house · Setbacks · Zoning · Map · Plans One panel opens at a time. The chevron at the end folds the bar to a single Site Planner button, and Pascal remembers that choice. Clicking Site Planner’s icon in the sidebar unfolds the bar and switches the sidebar back to the chat. On a narrow screen, the bar shows its icons with small names under them.

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Find the lot

Open Lot, type an address such as 1234 Elm St, Modesto, CA, and click Find lot. The lookup can take 15 seconds or more. When it finishes, the panel lists the lot’s Address, Parcel (APN), Lot area, Zone, and Setbacks. A banner at the top of the panel says how far you can trust the property line. The same banner appears in the zoning report and its PDF.

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Correct the property line

Assessor maps can be a few feet off. There are three ways to fix the lines:

• Lot sides lists each side with its bearing and length in decimal feet. Type a new length and that side’s far corner moves, while the next side stays parallel, so a rectangle stays a rectangle. While the panel is open, each side is labelled on the lot in the 3D view. Click a label to jump to that side’s length.
• From plat lets you type each side’s bearing and distance off the recorded plat or survey, for example S 89°09'30" E and 120.00. Site Planner checks that the sides close. If they’re a foot or more off, it tells you to look for a typo. Set the lot applies the lines.
• Property line › Edit turns on the editor’s property line tool. Drag a corner to move it, or drag the middle of an edge to add a corner.

Records puts back the lines the parcel records gave.

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Put a house on the lot

Open Designs. The line at the top shows the lot the design will go on, with a link to Find the lot or Change it. If you haven’t found a lot yet, the design goes down at the scene’s origin. Designs are grouped on shelves: Click Build here on a card. The design replaces the house already on the lot, and Cmd/Ctrl + Z brings the old house back. A result card then says Built as saved, Resized, or Not built, with any notes and warnings. Tick Maximize space before building to let the design’s rooms grow by up to 50%, so the house fills more of the lot. To reuse the current house, type a name next to Save this house, such as The Hartwell, and click Save. It appears in Your Designs, where each card also has buttons to share it to Community Designs (the globe), download it as a file, or delete it.

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Move the house

Click Move house once there’s a house on the lot. A small bar opens under the main one:

• Drag the house in the 3D view. It follows the ground as it moves.
• Turn left and Turn right turn it 15° at a time. Type an exact Angle in degrees for any other turn.
• Centre puts the house in the middle of the lot.

Click Done or press Esc to finish. Each drag or turn is a single undo step. The setback dimensions show on the ground the whole time you’re moving.

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Check the setbacks

Open Setbacks to see the house’s distance to each property line, drawn on the ground in the 3D view. A dimension turns red when the house is closer than the lot allows. In the panel, each side (Front, Street side, Left side, Right side, Rear) shows the minimum the lot asks for and the house’s current distance. Type a distance, such as 20, 20'-6", or 6m, and press Enter, and the house slides straight off that property line to exactly that distance. Min puts it at the minimum. You can also click a dimension on the ground to type it. The panel also has these options:

• Show the setbacks on the ground turns the dimensions on or off.
• Show the zoning envelope (setbacks and height) draws a see-through box over the lot. Its sides rise straight up from the setback lines to the Wall height, then slope in at the Slope angle ° up to the Height limit. The box is green while the house fits inside it and red when part of the house is in a setback or above the slope or the height limit. Set the three numbers to your jurisdiction’s figures.
• Grid turns with the house (walls snap square to it) keeps a turned house drawn square.

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Lot rules

When the records are wrong or missing, open Lot rules: setbacks, street side, corner lot at the bottom of the Setbacks panel:

• Required setbacks: front, left side, right side, rear, and street side on a corner lot.
• Front faces: which edge of the lot is on the street.
• Corner lot (a second street): pick the Second street edge and set the Corner sight triangle.

The setbacks, the site plan, and the zoning table all use what you enter here, and it’s saved with the lot marked as entered by hand.

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Check the zoning

Open Zoning. At the top, Site Planner looks up the lot’s zone and overlays, such as specific plans or historic districts, on official zoning maps. It shows the agency and map each one came from: If no official map has the lot, the card says Zone not found. If the lot was found on Pascal Map, its zone is shown too, with a note when it differs from the official one. To set the zone yourself, for a rezoned lot or a zone the maps got wrong, click the pencil and type it, for example R-2. Use the map’s zone goes back to the official one.

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Zoning code report

Click Look up the zoning code. It takes about a minute and needs a saved project. Site Planner reads the city’s or county’s own zoning code pages. For a California lot, it also reads state housing law on ADUs and SB 9. AI then writes a report from those sources, citing the code section for every rule:

• A verdict: Buildable, Buildable with limits, or Not for a house, with a one-line summary.
• The lot drawn with its setbacks and buildable area, and the lot area, footprint, and largest house allowed.
• Expand the zoning report opens cards for What you can build, Setbacks, Height & size (height, stories, lot coverage, floor area ratio), Accessory dwelling unit, Parking, and each overlay. It also lists Every rule found, with links to the sources.

The report’s setbacks and height limit go onto the lot’s rules right away. Revert puts back what was there before, and Apply puts the report’s numbers back on. Look up again writes a fresh report, which is worth doing after you change the zone. Download PDF saves the report as a printable document. It includes the lot plan to scale, satellite, vicinity, and 3D views of the site, the zoning envelope, the terrain, the cards, and every rule with its sources.

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Rules for this lot

Under the report, Rules for this lot compares the lot’s required figures with the house on it. Each rule is marked as met or not met, with a total such as All 6 met or 2 of 6 not met. It updates as you move or change the house.

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Map and plans

Map shows the neighbourhood around the lot:

• Around the lot: Off, 2D (Google’s satellite photo), or 3D (Google’s 3D map).
• Lot photo overlay: a sharp satellite photo on the lot itself.
• Bold property line: thick red dashes around the lot, drawn over the maps.
• Sun: Off, Real (where the sun is over the lot at the time of day you pick), or Follow (the sun follows the camera).

Plans opens the project’s plan set. If the project doesn’t have one yet, Site Planner lays one out first.