ADUs & Additions in Manhattan Beach

City of Manhattan Beach Community Development Department, Building and Safety Division. Building permits are issued by the Building and Safety Division of the City's Community Development Department, with applications accepted through the Citizen Self Service portal.

Manhattan Beach has a certified Local Coastal Program, so the City itself issues Coastal Development Permits under the Coastal Development Permit Procedures chapter of that program, and certain decisions remain appealable to the California Coastal Commission.

Chapter A.96 of the Local Coastal Program decides whether a Coastal Zone project needs a Coastal Development Permit or qualifies for an exemption, so we check the City's Coastal Zone map first. Review time varies with scope, and a plan check expires if no permit is issued within 12 months of the application.

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

Tight and narrow near the beach, with larger, steeply sloped view parcels up the hill and wider conventional lots inland. One local condition that shapes the work: Loose beach sand and dune deposits across much of the west side require engineered shoring, and often caissons, before excavation for a basement, pool or equipment vault.

All of it, including Sand Section, Tree Section, Hill Section and El Porto. 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.