ADU Contractor in La Crescenta, CA

For the unincorporated La Crescenta-Montrose area, no. Permits route through LA County: Regional Planning reviews the ADU first, then LA County Public Works Building & Safety issues the building permit, both through the County’s EPIC-LA system. If your parcel falls inside the City of Glendale, the City of Glendale processes the ADU permit instead. We confirm the jurisdiction for your address before we submit.

Under the County’s local standards, one attached ADU, one detached ADU and one junior ADU. State law also allows statewide-exemption units, including a detached ADU of up to 800 square feet with four-foot side and rear setbacks, which the County treats separately from its local standards. Which combination fits your lot depends on the yard, the slope and the fire zone, and we map it at the first visit.

In a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone the County permits an ADU when the lot has two distinct, non-overlapping means of access to a highway, each 24 feet wide and built to Public Works standards, or a single means of access when the lot fronts directly on a highway. The statewide-exemption ADU types are not subject to that access requirement. Inside the fire zone, one uncovered parking space is required for the ADU unless an exemption applies. Whether your parcel carries the designation is confirmed on the official state map, never assumed.

A junior ADU is a unit of no more than 500 square feet located entirely within the single-family residence, with its own exterior entrance and an efficiency kitchen. It is often the right answer when the yard is tight or sloped. Owner-occupancy is required when the JADU shares sanitation facilities with the main house, and the County requires a recorded covenant before a JADU is approved.

Yes. The County requires any needed Oak Tree Permit to be approved before the ADU or JADU itself is approved, so we inventory oaks at the first site visit and site the unit to avoid the permit where we can, or start that review early where we cannot.

State law does not allow a local agency to impose an owner-occupant requirement on an ADU, although a local agency may require that the unit be rented for terms of 30 days or longer. The County has not yet adopted a short-term-rental ban for ADUs and JADUs; its published guidance notes a County short-term-rental ordinance is still in development, so we confirm the current rule for your address before you rent. Junior ADUs also require owner-occupancy when they share a bathroom with the main house.