ADUs & Additions in Sunland-Tujunga

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 Sunland-Tujunga, its flat center included, lies inside the City's mapped Hillside Grading Area, so a pool here also needs its own LADBS grading permit. Much of the foothill ground on both sides of the valley falls inside the San Gabriel/Verdugo Mountains Scenic Preservation Specific Plan (Ordinance No. 175,736), where LADBS may not issue a building or grading permit for a Project, a term that includes any grading that needs a grading permit, until City Planning grants Project Permit Compliance. A single-family home on an existing site under 20,000 square feet, outside a Prominent Ridgeline Protection Area and any Equinekeeping District, falls outside the plan's definition of a Project, so it skips that review but must still meet the plan's ridgeline-silhouette rule where it applies and its prohibited-plant list. On plan-area lots of 20,000 square feet or more, a coast live oak or valley oak of eight inches or more, measured 4.5 feet above the ground, cannot be removed, cut down or moved without prior written approval from City Planning, and palms, Italian cypress, blue gum eucalyptus, California and Brazilian pepper trees, fountain grass and pampas grass are among the plants prohibited in new Projects. We prepare the drawings, make the submittal and handle plan-check corrections ourselves, so you are not the one chasing plan check.

Mostly low-density single-family. Postwar tracts on the gently sloping ground at the foot of the San Gabriels hold modest parcels, about 0.15 acre on Amanita Avenue and about 0.20 acre around Marnice Avenue, while the hillside Haines Canyon tract has irregular lots of roughly 0.4 to 0.85 acre set into the slope. Inside the Specific Plan, 20,000 square feet, about 0.46 acre, is where the oak rule begins and the single-family exemption ends, so lot size shapes a project as much as grade does. One local condition that shapes the work: The generally flat center gives way to San Gabriel and Verdugo foothill slopes, where homes such as those on Haines Canyon Avenue sit into the hillside above masonry retaining walls and stone or brick stairs, so structure and drainage lead the build.

All of it, including Sunland, Tujunga, Old Tujunga and Haines Canyon. 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.