Backyard & Outdoor Living in Lakewood

City of Lakewood Community Development Department, Building and Safety Division. Building permits are issued by the Building and Safety Division of the Community Development Department, and most permit applications and plan check submittals go through the City's online permit center on OpenGov. Pools and spas, porches and patio covers, walls and fences, additions and new dwelling units, including ADUs, are all on the City's list of residential projects that go through Planning review, and plans move on to Building Plan Check once Planning approval is in hand. Under the zoning code, new dwelling units on R-1 and R-A lots, ADUs and JADUs among them, receive a ministerial staff design review against the City's Administrative Manual for Residential Development, which looks for consistent architectural compatibility among all the dwellings and structures on a lot. The City's ADU guidance adds that materials must equal or exceed the quality of the main house, with roofing, paint color, windows and doors, landscaping and trash storage all part of that review. We prepare the drawings, make the submittal and handle plan-check corrections ourselves, so you are not the one chasing plan check.

Lakewood is overwhelmingly single-family: roughly 93 percent of its residentially zoned land is zoned for and built with single-family homes, and more than half of all homes date from the 1950s, when the Lakewood Park houses went up as two- and three-bedroom designs, every one with a garage. Two-story homes came later, first in the Pennswood Square tract in 1965 and then at Westgate. The zoning code limits the first floor of the house plus any enclosed accessory structures to 45 percent of the lot and living area to 60 percent of lot area, and it requires lots of 5,000 square feet or more to keep at least 750 square feet of open space in the rear half. Side and rear setbacks are four feet, habitable accessory buildings including ADUs must stay four feet from side and rear lot lines, and in the Lakewood Gardens tracts the front setback is 14 feet with no porch allowed to project into it. One local condition that shapes the work: Lakewood is relatively flat, and the City's Housing Element notes that no residentially zoned property sits on or near a slope subject to landslides. With so little natural fall, drainage has to be designed: the zoning code bars regrading that diverts runoff onto an abutting property, keeps roof water from accessory structures, ADUs included, from falling off the lot, and has lot drainage directed to the public right-of-way and storm drain system in a manner the Public Works Director accepts.

All of it, including Lakewood Park, Mayfair, Lakewood Gardens and Cherry Cove. 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.