ADUs & Additions in Agoura Hills

City of Agoura Hills Community Development Department, Building and Safety Division. Residential permits are issued by the City of Agoura Hills Building and Safety Division, with planning and architectural review handled in the same Community Development Department. The oak tree preservation ordinance protects any oak with a trunk diameter of two inches or more and establishes a protected zone extending five feet beyond the dripline, so grading, trenching or paving near a canopy requires an oak tree permit. Parcels in or partly in a designated hillside area need architectural review approval or a conditional use permit before a building or grading permit can issue. CAL FIRE's March 2025 local responsibility area maps place the large majority of the city in high or very high fire hazard severity zones, which drives defensible space and exterior material requirements. We prepare the drawings, make the submittal and handle plan-check corrections ourselves, so you are not the one chasing the city.

A mix of flat tract parcels with modest rear yards near the valley floor and half-acre-plus equestrian and hillside properties with slope, oaks and long driveways in the older ranch areas. In practice that means decomposed granite and clay-rich hillside soils vary sharply within a single parcel, so pool shells and detached structure foundations usually need a project-specific soils report rather than a standard detail..

All of it, including Old Agoura, Morrison Ranch, Lake Lindero, Liberty Canyon. We are based in Los Angeles at Cahuenga Pass, so Agoura Hills is a short run for our crews rather than a job we service from out of the area.

Detached ADU in this market generally runs $150,000 to $400,000+. What moves it is square footage, finish level, utility runs, and site access; garage conversions typically run well below a ground-up detached build. We give line-item pricing after seeing the site rather than quoting a number over the phone.

Plan a realistic year. Design and engineering typically take one to three months, city plan check and corrections add several more, and construction usually runs four to eight months depending on size and site access.

Usually yes, and often substantially, because the foundation, walls and roof already exist. The trade-offs are that you lose the garage, and older slabs and framing sometimes need upgrading to meet current code.

California ADU law is designed to allow long-term rental, and an ADU is one of the few ways to add rentable square footage to a single-family lot. Short-term rental rules vary by city, so confirm your local ordinance before counting on that income.

Yes. Plans, engineering, Title 24 and the city submittal are all handled in-house, including responding to plan-check corrections. That is a service we sell on its own, so it is not something we hand off.