Backyard & Outdoor Living in Upland

City of Upland Development Services, Building and Safety Division. Every Building and Safety permit application goes through the city's online Citizen Self Service portal, and the division's counter at City Hall, 460 North Euclid Avenue, is open Monday through Thursday, with City Hall closed every Friday. The zoning code keeps swimming pools, spas and their equipment at least five feet from side and rear property lines and out of front yards. The city's pool barrier handout asks for two safety measures to satisfy both city and state rules, one of which must be a fence or barrier, and a pool enclosure must stand 60 to 72 inches high, with gates that open away from the pool, self-close and latch at least 60 inches above the ground. Altering a resource on the local register or a contributing property in one of the nine historic districts, including grading, surface paving, new structures, walls or tree removal that affect its significant visual or historical qualities, requires a Certificate of Appropriateness, and the city's pre-approved ADU plans cannot be used in high fire zone areas. 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 runs from RS-4, with a 4,000-square-foot minimum lot, through RS-7.5 and RS-10 to the low-density RS-15 and RS-20 zones, which call for lots of at least 15,000 and 20,000 square feet, larger homes, large front, side and rear setbacks and wide separation between houses. Planned communities follow their own adopted specific plans rather than the base zones: the Upland Hills Country Club plan, straddling 16th Street east of North Campus Avenue, was approved in 1981 around an 18-hole golf course with homes at up to three dwellings per gross acre, and the Colonies at San Antonio sits just to its north. One local condition that shapes the work: Pools, spas, fountains, waterfalls, mechanical equipment, barbecues, fire pits and other garden features may not sit within a five-foot radius measured from a point five feet above grade at the nearest property line, and where a slope separates two lots that five-foot vertical point is taken from the slope surface of record, so side-yard width and grade changes decide where features can go.

All of it, including Historic Downtown Upland, Old Magnolia, Victorian Row and Pleasant View. 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.