General Contractor in Los Angeles, CA

What should you know before hiring a general contractor in Los Angeles?

Before anything is drawn, a Los Angeles job has to be sorted into a review path. LADBS, at dbs.lacity.gov, offers express permits with no plan check, Counter Plan Check, Expanded Counter Plan Check and Regular Plan Check, and it will sit down with you for a Preliminary Plan Check before you submit. Applications go through PermitLA, drawings go through ePlanLA, and in person counters operate in the Metro, Van Nuys, West Los Angeles, San Pedro and South Los Angeles offices. The express list is wide for repair and replacement work: a kitchen remodel or bathroom remodel with no structural change, a same-size window and door change-out, an eligible re-roof, new plumbing fixtures, a water heater swap and electrical work up to 400 amps in an existing home. Anything that adds floor area, such as a room addition, is not on that list. LADBS publishes a Permit Fee Calculator, so we leave City fees out of our estimates until you run your own address.

The surprise for most owners is how many overlays can land on one parcel. A Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone brings Class A roofing, ember-resistant vents, tempered glass, noncombustible deck surfaces within 10 feet of the house and brush clearance within 200 feet of structures all year. CAL FIRE issued new zone maps on March 24, 2025, and when LAFD last posted on them the City still had to adopt them by ordinance, so we confirm a parcel's current status before quoting a roof or vent detail. A Hillside Area adds the Baseline Hillside Ordinance on floor area and grading, haul route hearings above 1,000 cubic yards of soil, and tighter hours in Bel Air, Beverly Crest, Laurel Canyon, Kirkwood and Bird Streets. A lot that sits in both a fire zone and a Hillside Area is closed to local ordinance ADUs unless an exception applies, which changes how an ADU project begins. Coastal parcels follow Coastal Development Permit procedure, and Methane Zones need site testing and a mitigation system under LABC Division 71.

Historic review is the overlay people miss, because it applies even when no building permit does. City Planning lists 36 adopted Historic Preservation Overlay Zones, and its HPOZ guidance says exterior alterations in one need approval, which reaches painting, concrete work, fences, a reroof and even a replaced pane of window glass. Under those zones sits an old, mostly rented housing stock. The City's Housing Element needs assessment counts about 63 percent of units as renter-occupied, nearly half built before 1960 and about 20 percent before 1939, and it warns that homes from before the 1940s are likelier to hold lead paint, mold and unsafe plumbing or wiring. Census Bureau estimates count about 1.59 million housing units, and only about 38 percent are detached houses. In a building under the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, work that replaces wiring, a panel, or water, gas and drain lines can fall under the Tenant Habitability Program, and older wood houses can fall under the Chapter 92 rules for cripple wall and foundation bracing.

The calendar follows the weather. Downtown averages 14.25 inches of rain a year, 11.64 of them from December through March and almost none in July or August, so roof, paint and pour schedules cluster in the dry months while interior work such as flooring installation or the thin cementitious finish on our microcement page can run through winter. That is one downtown station, and the NWS statement gives no hillside, Valley or coastal figures. Tarzana, Encino and Woodland Hills answer to the same LADBS as Hollywood, Silver Lake, Highland Park, Venice, Brentwood and San Pedro, yet the overlay map changes block by block. MDG Builders, CSLB #1040337, is a general contractor based in Tarzana: we write the scope, coordinate drawings and permits, book licensed specialty subcontractors for each trade and manage them through to your walkthrough. Any of them will give you a license number and certificate of insurance on request. Our article on how general contractors use subcontractors shows the arrangement, and neighboring hubs include Glendale and Pasadena.