Historically, the earliest Bakersfield “urban” subdivisions were not called tracts. The downtown area was subdivided into blocks and lots. Early citywide maps show the city blocks numbered from 1 to over 700. Some blocks were designated by letters rather than numbers. Each block was further subdivided into numbered lots. Thereafter housing subdivisions were called tracts and initially were named (example; Lowell Addition). Many of these “Named” tracts were also subdivided into blocks and lots. The earliest rural land subdivisions are the Sales Map Lands of J. B. Haggin and the Sales Map Lands of the Kern County l Land Company. The legal description of most modern lots is comprised of some combination of the fields: Document Type, Map Number, Phase and Lot Number. A “Block” field should be added for old parcels whose legal description is comprised of tract, block and lot (or just block and lot). The legal description fields for most of the older parcels are not populated at this time. PARCEL FEATURE CLASS ATTRIBUTES Document Type (Domain)Aliquot – subdivision of a public land survey system section i.e. the northeast quarter of the south east quarter of the southwest quarter of section 10 of T28S, R27ETract MapParcel Map Lot Line Adjustment (ex. LLA17-0684)Parcel Map Waiver (ex. PMW17-0398)Parcel Merger (ex. LM17-0695)Map Number Tracts – Old named tracts and numbered tracts, currently into the 7000’sParcel maps – numbered, currently into the 12,000’sMinor land subdivisions (lot line adjustments, parcel map waivers, parcel mergers) format YY-NNNN, where YY is a 2-digit designation of the year and NNNN is a zero-filled number (county files is reversed, ex. NN – YY)Phase Applicable to tract and parcel maps only; i.e. 1, 2, 3 etc. or A, B, C etc. Lot Number i.e. 1, 2, 3 etc. or A, B, C etc. Quality (Domain)In reference to the geometric and positional accuracy of the parcel features. All COGO’d parcels are considered “Excellent” quality User Flag This field is for temporary data storage. However the following user flag values provide information about how the parcel features originally built or subsequently edited: CAD CONVERSION - parcels were developed from georeferenced CAD data. Quality is considered excellent. COGO - parcels were first developed employing COGO editing tools. Quality is considered excellent REBUILT - parcels were originally Valleywide GIS features that were rebuilt using COGO and other editing tools. Quality is considered excellent except parcels that were rebuilt where only assessor maps were available. SHIFTED - original parcels were considered geometrically adequate but required a slight positional shift. Whole blocks of contiguous lots were shifted together. Quality is considered good. Class(Domain)This field provides an opportunity to classify lots for specific purposes. The Private road lot class was created so these lots could be neglected when exporting parcels for the Community Maps Project. Landscape lot Private road lot School lot Sump lot Water Well lot Additional classes could be developed. For the vast majority of parcels the class field is not populated. Address The street address of a lot can be populated if the address point feature class objects have already been created and populated by the GIS Analyst at Community Development. Where there are multiple addresses on a parcel, this data is captured on the Address Point feature class. Assessor Parcel Number (APN) and Assessor Tax Numbers (ATN)The most important parcel layer attributes are the APN and ATN values that are assigned by the Kern County Assessor. An 8 digit APN is assigned to a property that has a specific geometry as defined by a legal description. If any new change occurs such as a lot line adjustment, then the geometry of the parcel(s) are changed and the APN’s for the affected properties are dropped and are never re-assigned. New unique APN’s are assigned to the affected properties and remain as long as the legal description of the geometry does not change. It usually takes at least a few months after a tract is recorded and the parcel feature class objects are developed before the County assigns APN’s to those parcels. The APN field is populated with “NEW” until such time as values are assigned. Parcel APNs can be acquired from the following sources: https://kernpublicworks.com/maps/parcel-maps/, Preliminary (January) and final (July) Kern County parcel GIS releases. Some Condominium common areas do not have an APN. The APN field is populated with “CONDOLOT”. These parcels are retained in order to preserve road right of ways. Compare City parcel layer features with County features to visualize why we retain these parcels.

This data is intended to provide a reasonable representation of parcels, as defined for property tax assessment purposes, that can be used easily in a computerized geographic information system. This data is not intended to replace the hardcopy assessment maps or any other official or unofficial county maps, and it is not to be construed as portraying legal ownership or divisions of land for purposes of zoning or subdivision law.

This feature class contains "land" (surface rights) parcel boundaries delineated for property tax assessment purposes.

This feature class includes all private, tax-exempt, and state-assessed land parcels listed on the secured tax roll, but does not include mineral rights (subsurface) parcels, mobilehomes, or unsecured entities.

Parcels are modeled as planimetric polygons in a seamless fabric comprising the spatial extent of the County of Kern, in the State of California.

Tax Roll Data is available in separate database tables, which can be joined to the feature class using the APN9 field as the SQL join key.

This feature class contains "land" (surface rights) parcel boundaries delineated for property tax assessment purposes.This feature class includes all private, tax-exempt, and state-assessed land parcels listed on the secured tax roll, but does not include mineral rights (subsurface) parcels, mobilehomes, or unsecured entities.Parcels are modeled as planimetric polygons in a seamless fabric comprising the spatial extent of the County of Kern, in the State of California.Tax Roll Data is available in separate database tables, which can be joined to the feature class using the APN field as a key.

© Kern Council of Governments. Merced County Association of Governments. City of Bakersfield, IT Division, GIS Services. City of Shafter, IT Department, GIS Division. Kern County Assessor's Office, Mapping Section.

This layer is a component of Dev Assessor mxd.

This feature class contains "Mineral Rights" (subsurface) parcel boundaries which are assessed separately from the land (surface) parcels.This feature class includes all mineral rights parcels listed on the mineral tax roll, but does not include land (surface) parcels, mobilehomes, or unsecured entities.Mineral parcels are further categorized as either "producing" or "non-producing". While all producing mineral parcels are assessed, non-producing mineral parcels are assessed only if they have an "indication of value", such as those purchased or leased for the purpose of exploration. Mineral parcels having no indication of value are not assessed, and therefore are not mapped, maintained, or otherwise tracked by the Assessor in this (or any other) dataset.Parcels are modeled as planimetric polygons in a seamless fabric comprising the spatial extent of the County of Kern, in the State of California.Tax Roll Data is available in separate database tables, which can be joined to the feature class using the APN field as a key.

© Kern County Assessor's Office, Mapping Section.

This layer is a component of Dev Assessor mxd.

Historically the oldest rural subdivisions in the Bakersfield vicinity were called Sales Maps Lands of J. B. Haggin or Sales Map Lands of the Kern County Land Company. The parcel layer presently does not capture this information in any consistent manor for those General Plan Area parcels that still retain Sale Map Land designations as their legal description. These parcels were developed by heads-up digitizing georeferenced Sales Maps so positioning is only approximate except for those otherwise indicated on the Quality attirbute.

This layer is a component of Dev Assessor mxd.

This shapefile contains tax rate area (TRA) boundaries in Kern County for the specified assessment roll year. Boundary alignment is based on the 2020 county parcel map. A tax rate area (TRA) is a geographic area within the jurisdiction of a unique combination of cities, schools, and revenue districts that utilize the regular city or county assessment roll, per Government Code 54900. Each TRA is assigned a six-digit numeric identifier, referred to as a TRA number. TRA = tax rate area number

This shapefile contains tax rate area (TRA) boundaries in Kern County for the specified assessment roll year. Boundary alignment is based on the 2020 county parcel map. A tax rate area (TRA) is a geographic area within the jurisdiction of a unique combination of cities, schools, and revenue districts that utilize the regular city or county assessment roll, per Government Code 54900. Each TRA is assigned a six-digit numeric identifier, referred to as a TRA number. TRA = tax rate area number

This shapefile contains tax rate area (TRA) boundaries in Kern County for the specified assessment roll year. Boundary alignment is based on the 2020 county parcel map. A tax rate area (TRA) is a geographic area within the jurisdiction of a unique combination of cities, schools, and revenue districts that utilize the regular city or county assessment roll, per Government Code 54900. Each TRA is assigned a six-digit numeric identifier, referred to as a TRA number. TRA = tax rate area number