ADUs & Additions in Altadena

Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, Building and Safety Division. Altadena is unincorporated, so building permits are issued by the County's Building and Safety Division rather than any city, with land-use and zoning review by the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning plus clearances from County Fire and Public Health. Submittals run through the County's EpicLA portal, and there is a County Building and Safety office and One-Stop Permit Center on West Woodbury Road serving Eaton Fire rebuilds. Development standards come from County Code Title 22 and the Altadena Community Standards District, which governs the size and scale of new and expanded structures and addresses hillside management areas. Much of the north side is mapped Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone. We prepare the drawings, make the submittal and handle plan-check corrections ourselves, so you are not the one chasing the city.

Lots are unusually deep for the region — often 8,000 to 15,000 square feet with genuine room for a detached structure — and grade uphill toward the mountains as you move north. In practice that means foothill parcels sit on steep alluvial and debris-flow deposits below the Angeles National Forest, so grading, drainage, and retaining engineering carry more weight than on valley-floor sites..

All of it, including Janes Village, Country Club Park, The Meadows, La Viña. We are based in Los Angeles at Cahuenga Pass, so Altadena 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.