Look at a Kensington street map and you will see two naming conventions colliding. West of Arlington Avenue, in the old Kensington Park and Berkeley Park subdivisions, the streets carry English names: Westminster, Kingston, Coventry, Stratford, Lenox. East and above, in the Berkeley Highlands, they are named for colleges: Purdue, Kenyon, Amherst, Willamette, York. What the two halves share is width. These blocks were laid out in the 1910s and 1920s for streetcars and Model Ts, and they were never widened.

For us that means a shuttle is standard equipment in Kensington rather than a contingency. The crew brings a smaller truck up to your door, loads it there, drives down to Arlington Avenue or the Colusa Circle area, and transfers everything into the line-haul trailer. It adds a step. It also prevents the alternative, which is a 26-foot truck reversing 200 feet down Lam Court because there was nowhere to turn.

Cul-de-sacs need the same planning. So do the blocks where residents park on both sides and leave a single lane through the middle. We look at your street during the estimate and tell you exactly where the truck will sit.

Parking, Access, and Fire Clearance

Kensington is unincorporated, so there is no city hall issuing moving permits and no residential parking permit program of the kind El Cerrito runs near its BART stations. The roads are Contra Costa County’s, policed by the Kensington Police Protection and Community Services District. In practice that means fewer posted restrictions than a neighboring city and more responsibility on the mover to park sensibly.

Fire access is the real constraint. CalFire places all of Kensington inside a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, and the Kensington Fire Protection District asks residents to keep streets clear so engines can get through and neighbors can get out. A moving truck parked across a narrow lane for six hours works directly against that. We stage where an engine can still pass, and if the National Weather Service has issued a Red Flag Warning for the East Bay hills on your move date, we call you to talk through timing before the crew rolls.

What We Handle in Kensington

  • Local moving within Kensington or down to Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito, and Richmond, billed hourly.
  • Long-distance moving out of state, priced on shipment weight and mileage.
  • Packing for the whole house or just the parts you would rather not touch.
  • Storage in warehouse vaults when the sale closes before the purchase does.
  • Piano moving and custom crating for artwork, mirrors, and collections, which Kensington houses hold a lot of.
  • Downsizing and estate moves, the job we do most often here. People stay in these houses for thirty and forty years, and a basement and attic full of that history takes longer to sort than a two-bedroom apartment. We work at whatever pace the family needs.
  • Commercial moving for the professional offices around Arlington Avenue and Colusa Circle.