Los Angeles Building Permits Guide

Last updated: September 8, 2026

A remodel, addition, or ADU in the Los Angeles area doesn't necessarily go through the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) — which authority reviews the project depends on the city the property sits in. Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, and Santa Monica each run their own building and safety department, separate from LADBS, with their own fee schedules, review timelines, and local ordinances layered on top of the state building code. Shulmen Construction LA (CSLB #1077837) manages the plan-check and permit process directly with whichever department applies, rather than handing it to a third-party expediter.

How the four authorities compare

City of Los Angeles — LADBS

LADBS is the default authority for most of the neighborhoods Shulmen builds in, including Hancock Park and much of the Westside outside the incorporated cities listed below. Standard plan check timelines vary by project scope. ADUs have a legal deadline: once an application is complete and the lot already has a home, the city has 60 days to approve or deny it (Government Code section 66317).

Beverly Hills

Beverly Hills runs its own Building & Safety department, entirely separate from LADBS, with its own submittal process and inspectors. Two factors specific to Beverly Hills are worth planning around: a 0.2125% contractor business tax assessed on permitted work, and a plan-check cycle that generally runs around three weeks. Projects on hillside lots also need to account for the city's hillside ordinance.

West Hollywood

West Hollywood permits independently of both the City of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills. Beyond the standard building code review, properties in or near the city's historic districts may carry additional design review considerations, so it's worth confirming a property's historic-district status early in design rather than after drawings are finished.

Santa Monica

Santa Monica issues its own permits and layers two additional considerations onto standard plan check: coastal zone review for applicable properties, and compliance with the city's green building ordinance. Both can affect design decisions and documentation requirements well before a permit is submitted.

ADU permits in Los Angeles: the 60-day deadline and real timelines

For an ADU, state law sets two clocks: the city has 15 business days to say whether an application is complete, and, when the lot already has a home, 60 days to approve or deny a complete one (Government Code section 66317). If the ADU is applied for together with a new house, the agency may wait to decide the ADU until it decides the house. Those are deadlines, not averages: ADU applications in Los Angeles County averaged 147 days to permit outside the Coastal Zone and 260 days inside it from 2018 to 2022 (Terner Center), and on our Beverlywood project the ADU permit took about three months. The LADBS Approved Standard Plans Program shortens plan check for designs built from pre-approved plans. Construction comes after the permit and typically runs 6 to 10 months for a detached ADU. See the Los Angeles Remodeling Costs 2026 page for the full cost and timeline breakdown, and the ADU Construction page for what's included in an ADU project. For the legislative backdrop shaping current ADU rules, see ADU Laws California 2026.

HPOZ review — a layer on top of standard permitting

Properties inside a Historic Preservation Overlay Zone (HPOZ) — Hancock Park chief among the neighborhoods Shulmen builds in — go through an additional layer of review before a standard permit is issued. Exterior work visible from the public right-of-way is generally screened against the district's Preservation Plan, which can mean a Certificate of Appropriateness, a Certificate of Compatibility, or a Conforming Work review, depending on scope and the property's contributing status. This guide won't re-walk the full HPOZ process here — see the Hancock Park general contractor page for how Shulmen manages that review directly, or the LA City Planning Historic District Project Review page for the City's own guidance.

Whichever jurisdiction applies, the practical takeaway is the same: confirm which department has authority over a specific property before finalizing a design, since the review path, fees, and timeline can differ meaningfully city to city.