ADUs & Additions in Irvine

City of Irvine Community Development Department, Building and Safety Division. Plan review, permit issuance and inspections are handled by the Building and Safety Division within the Community Development Department, with submittals and inspection scheduling through the city's online permits system. Some minor residential replacements are available as self-service permits, while pools, spas, additions and ADUs require full plan check. Permits for Group R-3 residential work become invalid eighteen months from issuance unless extended in writing by the Building Official. Essentially every village is governed by a master association and often a sub-association as well, and the architectural review committee runs on its own separate track from city plan check — under state law an association cannot ban an ADU outright, but it can enforce reasonable exterior standards for materials, color and placement. We prepare the drawings, make the submittal and handle plan-check corrections ourselves, so you are not the one chasing the city.

Lots are planned and predictable — rectangular pads with consistent setbacks, walled rear yards and a defined side yard. Newer villages trend toward smaller usable rear yards with larger homes, while the older established villages and the custom enclaves offer genuinely deep backyards. In practice that means rear yards back onto engineered slopes and association-maintained landscape easements far more often than onto neighboring property, which limits where a shell or foundation can legally sit..

All of it, including Turtle Rock, Woodbridge, Northwood, Shady Canyon. We are based in Los Angeles at Cahuenga Pass, so Irvine 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.