Backyard & Outdoor Living in Seal Beach

City of Seal Beach Community Development Department, Building and Safety Division. The Building and Safety Division of the Community Development Department handles plan review, permit issuance and inspections, and building permit applications and plans can be submitted electronically. Seal Beach does not yet have a certified Local Coastal Program, and the zoning code's Coastal Development Permit chapter is still marked reserved, so coastal development permits remain with the California Coastal Commission inside the Coastal Zone, which the city's draft Land Use Plan describes as taking in Old Town and Surfside south of Pacific Coast Highway and the Marina Hill and Hellman Ranch area north of it. Before a pool's building permit issues, the city requires a written statement from a civil engineer registered in California certifying that construction will not harm neighboring structures, and in RLD-15 tracts with a legally constituted architectural committee, the city will not review plans for a building, fence, wall or pool until that committee has approved them. We prepare the drawings, make the submittal and handle plan-check corrections ourselves, so you are not the one chasing plan check.

Lots are small and regular. In the RLD-9 district the minimum interior lot is 5,000 square feet at 50 by 100 feet, and lot coverage is capped at 45 percent plus 5 percent for patio covers that are at least half open, while the Gold Coast stretch of Ocean Avenue between First and Eighth Streets is allowed 60 percent. Standard interior lots in Old Town's RHD-20 district measure 25 or 37.5 feet wide by 100 or 117.5 feet deep and back onto a 15-foot alley. For pools, the code limits the water area to 20 percent of a residential lot and 60 percent of the required rear yard, keeps the pool 50 feet from the front lot line, 10 feet from a street side line and 4 feet from interior side and rear lines, and sets the filter and heater at least 10 feet from a neighboring dwelling, or 8 feet with approved sound attenuation. One local condition that shapes the work: The city's draft Land Use Plan places most of Seal Beach at risk of liquefaction, and two faults of the Newport-Inglewood system, the Reservoir Hill fault and the Seal Beach fault, pass through the city, so the ground is worth understanding before a pool shell or new foundation is designed.

All of it, including Old Town, Gold Coast, Surfside Colony and The Hill. 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.