Backyard & Outdoor Living in Mar Vista

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. More than four in five single-family lots north of Venice Boulevard fall inside the city's Hillside Grading Area, where pool excavation needs its own grading permit, but no part of Mar Vista lies in the Hillside Area where the Baseline Hillside Ordinance applies. In 2017, Ordinance No. 184,814 rezoned most of the neighborhood's single-family lots from R1-1 to R1V2, so new houses and additions follow the R1V2 standards in LAMC Section 12.08. On the 52 parcels of the Gregory Ain Mar Vista Tract HPOZ, significant work on a contributing house needs a Certificate of Appropriateness. A rear-yard addition under 250 square feet that is not visible from the street and stays within the existing roofline and side planes is reviewed by the Director of Planning rather than the HPOZ Board. We prepare the drawings, make the submittal and handle plan-check corrections ourselves, so you are not the one chasing plan check.

Mostly single-family lots, with a median of about 6,000 square feet in LA County Assessor parcel data and the middle half falling between roughly 5,400 and 7,000 square feet. The large majority sit north of Venice Boulevard. South of the boulevard, none of the single-family lots are in the Hillside Grading Area, and multifamily buildings make up a far larger share of the residential lots. One local condition that shapes the work: Assessor records date roughly seven in ten single-family houses to the 1940s and 1950s, so the capacity of the existing electrical service and the condition of the sewer lateral are worth confirming before pool equipment, an outdoor kitchen or an ADU is added.

All of it, including Gregory Ain Mar Vista Tract, Westdale, North Westdale and Mar Vista Oval District. 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.