Backyard & Outdoor Living in Covina

City of Covina Community Development Department, Building & Safety Division. Building & Safety processes only addresses inside Covina city limits, so a Covina mailing address that falls in unincorporated county territory is permitted elsewhere. New pools and spas, all walls and fences, landscaping, exterior changes, additions and new structures, including sheds of any size, need Planning Approval before they are submitted to Building & Safety, and the Planning Approval Clearance goes into the plan set. Under the city's amendments to the 2025 California Residential Code, a new or remodeled pool or spa at a single-family home needs an enclosure that isolates it from the house plus at least one other drowning-prevention feature, and the zoning code calls for that enclosure to be at least five feet high with self-closing gates. Every fence or wall, whatever its height, also needs a wall and fence permit from the chief planning official. ADU applications are ministerial under Chapter 17.69, with a decision due within 60 days of a complete application when a home already stands on the lot, and units that go through the city's ministerial planning review must match the main house's dominant roof slope and include a covered entry porch of at least 60 square feet. We prepare the drawings, make the submittal and handle plan-check corrections ourselves, so you are not the one chasing plan check.

Single-family zoning steps up from R-1-7500, with 7,500-square-foot minimum lots, through R-1-8500 and R-1-10,000 to R-1-20,000, with one-acre E-1 estate lots in the southeast. Each R-1 zone caps building coverage at 35 percent and height at 35 feet, requires 25-foot front and rear yards, and lets accessory buildings cover no more than 35 percent of the required rear yard. About two-thirds of Covina's housing was built before 1970, and in the R-1-7500 zone a room addition's exterior and roof must match or resemble the existing house. One local condition that shapes the work: The R-1-7500 zone holds most of the city's single-family parcels. There a pool must stay out of the required front yard and at least five feet from side and rear property lines, and a patio in the required rear yard must keep five feet from those lines and cover no more than 35 percent of that yard.

All of it, including Old Town Covina, Cottage Drive, Covina Park and Howard Street. Our crews run every job out of our Cahuenga Pass base in Los Angeles, with our own people on site.

Full backyard transformation: generally $50,000 to $250,000+ across Southern California. What moves it is how much hardscape is involved, whether a pool or outdoor kitchen is included, grading and retaining, and the level of lighting and planting. We give line-item pricing after seeing the site rather than quoting a number over the phone.

A patio and turf refresh often finishes in three to five weeks. A full transformation with hardscape, an outdoor kitchen, structures and lighting typically runs ten to sixteen weeks, and longer if a pool is part of the same phase.

Pavers cost more up front but flex with ground movement instead of cracking, and individual units can be lifted and replaced. Poured concrete is cheaper initially, but a crack means cutting out and repouring a section that rarely matches. On most Southern California soil we recommend pavers for anything you will look at every day.

Yes, and on most projects we insist on it. Correcting grade and adding proper drainage while the yard is already open is far cheaper than retrofitting it after new hardscape is down.

Yes. Design, permits, hardscape, structures, kitchen, lighting and planting run through one team and one project manager, so nothing gets lost between trades.