ADUs & Additions in Hollywood Hills

Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS). Private pools in the City of Los Angeles are permitted through a Combined Building-Mechanical permit, while pools serving more than two dwelling units need separate building, electrical, plumbing and mechanical permits.

Using a City of Los Angeles standard plan on file with LADBS reduces plan check time. Nearly all of the Hollywood Hills sits in the Hillside Grading Area under the Baseline Hillside Ordinance, and much of it is in a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone.

Grading needs its own LADBS grading permit, and import or export of more than 1,000 cubic yards also needs a haul route approved by the Board of Building and Safety Commissioners after a public hearing. Large parts of the area also fall inside a Hillside Construction Regulation district, which adds grading, hauling and construction-hour limits.

We prepare the drawings, make the submittal and handle plan-check corrections ourselves, so you are not the one chasing plan check.

Steep, view-first parcels where structure and access drive both the schedule and the budget. This is the most engineering-heavy work we do, and it is on our doorstep. One local condition that shapes the work: Steep parcels usually require caissons and engineered retaining before a pool shell can be formed.

All of it, including Hollywood Heights, Nichols Canyon, Laurel Canyon and Outpost Estates. Our crews run every job out of our Cahuenga Pass base in Los Angeles, with our own people on site.

Detached ADU: generally $150,000 to $400,000+ across Southern California. 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.