General Contractor in Los Angeles

Green Design and Build is a licensed general contractor (CSLB #1110975) based at 16120 Sherman Way in Van Nuys, serving homeowners across Los Angeles County, Orange County, Ventura County and western Riverside County. We are a full-service residential general contractor and design-build remodeler for projects of every size: whole-home renovations, kitchens and bathrooms, room additions, ADUs, roofing, foundation repair and outdoor living. This page covers the City of Los Angeles outside the San Fernando Valley and the rest of Los Angeles County, from Santa Monica and the Westside to Hollywood, the South Bay, Pasadena and Long Beach.

The company was founded in 2023 and is led by Dekel Sofer, who has more than 16 years of hands-on construction experience. We have completed more than 500 projects and hold a 4.7-star rating across 146 reviews on Yelp. HVAC, plumbing and electrical work on our projects is performed by our licensed specialty-trade partners.

Who issues your permit in Los Angeles County

“Los Angeles” means three different things to a building inspector, and knowing which one applies to your address is the first thing we check.

City of Los Angeles — LADBS. If your home is inside city limits, permits and inspections go through the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety. That includes Hollywood, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Koreatown, Mid-City, Westwood, West Los Angeles, Brentwood, Bel Air, Pacific Palisades, Venice, Mar Vista, San Pedro and Wilmington, as well as the whole Valley. LADBS has its own zoning rules such as the Baseline Hillside Ordinance and more than 30 Historic Preservation Overlay Zones.

Separate cities with their own building departments. Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Culver City, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, El Segundo, Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank, Santa Clarita, Long Beach, Inglewood and Gardena are independent cities, each with its own plan-check process, fee schedule and, in many cases, design-review or hillside standards. Beverly Hills and Santa Monica in particular have review steps and construction-hours rules that stretch schedules compared with LADBS.

Unincorporated Los Angeles County — LA County Building and Safety. Altadena, Marina del Rey, East Los Angeles, Stevenson Ranch, Topanga and other unincorporated areas are permitted by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, Building and Safety Division, through its district offices. The county has its own ADU ordinance and code amendments.

We work in all three. Give us the address and we will tell you which department applies and what that means for your timeline.

Los Angeles housing stock and what it means for your remodel

Los Angeles has some of the oldest housing in Southern California, and older houses need a contractor who expects what is behind the plaster.

Spanish Revival, Craftsman and bungalow homes (1905–1940s). Common in Hollywood, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Mid-City, Pasadena, Long Beach and the older parts of Santa Monica and Culver City. Typical conditions: knob-and-tube wiring that must be replaced during a remodel, galvanized supply lines, clay sewer laterals, lath-and-plaster walls, unreinforced foundations, and original single-pane wood windows. Every home built before 1978 is presumed to contain lead-based paint, so demolition and sanding follow EPA lead-safe work practices. Many older neighborhoods also sit inside HPOZ historic districts, where exterior changes visible from the street are reviewed by the city’s Office of Historic Resources before a permit issues.

Mid-century homes and hillside lots. The Hollywood Hills, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Mount Washington, Bel Air, Brentwood and the Palisades have post-and-beam and stilt houses on steep lots. Additions there fall under the Baseline Hillside Ordinance, need a geotechnical report and engineered foundations, and are frequently in a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone with Chapter 7A ignition-resistant construction requirements.

Post-war tracts. West LA, Mar Vista, Culver City, Torrance, the beach cities and much of the San Gabriel Valley were built out in the 1940s–60s: single-story stucco ranches with garages, the same profile that makes ADUs and additions straightforward.

Seismic considerations for pre-1980 homes. Unbolted sill plates and unbraced cripple walls are common across all of the above. The City of Los Angeles requires soft-story retrofits for qualifying wood-frame multi-unit buildings under its 2015 ordinance. For single-family homes the work is voluntary, and we fold it into foundation and addition projects whenever the crawlspace is open.

The January 2025 fires and rebuilding

The Palisades Fire in January 2025 destroyed homes across Pacific Palisades, inside the City of Los Angeles, and the Eaton Fire did the same in Altadena, in unincorporated Los Angeles County. Both jurisdictions set up dedicated rebuild permitting paths, and state and local orders have eased certain requirements for like-for-like rebuilds. Rebuilding is a new-construction project with fire-zone rules layered on top: Chapter 7A materials, debris-clearance sign-off, current Title 24 energy compliance, and in the Palisades, hillside and coastal considerations.

We are doing this work. One of our Yelp reviews is from a family whose newly purchased Altadena home had extreme fire damage, and we handled the repair. We do not publish rebuild counts; we would rather you judge us on a site visit. If your home was damaged or destroyed, our new construction and whole-home renovation team can walk the lot with you and explain what your jurisdiction currently requires.

Los Angeles neighborhoods and cities we serve

Westside – Santa Monica (City of Santa Monica) – Beverly Hills (City of Beverly Hills) – West Hollywood (City of West Hollywood) – West Los Angeles, Westwood, Sawtelle, Mar Vista (LADBS) – Brentwood and Bel Air (LADBS, hillside) – Pacific Palisades (LADBS, fire rebuild) – Culver City (City of Culver City) – Venice and Playa del Rey (LADBS) – Marina del Rey (LA County)

Hollywood and the Eastside (all LADBS) – Hollywood and the Hollywood Hills – Los Feliz, Silver Lake and Echo Park – Atwater Village – Highland Park, Eagle Rock and Mount Washington – Koreatown, Hancock Park and Mid-City (several HPOZ districts)

South Bay and Harbor – Torrance (City of Torrance) – Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach (each its own city) – El Segundo (City of El Segundo) – Palos Verdes Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes (each its own city; landslide-zone review in parts of RPV) – San Pedro (LADBS) – Gardena, Carson and Inglewood (each its own city) – Long Beach (City of Long Beach Development Services)

Pasadena, Glendale and the San Gabriel Valley – Pasadena (City of Pasadena) – Altadena (LA County, fire rebuild) – Glendale and Burbank (each its own city) – La Cañada Flintridge, South Pasadena, San Marino, Alhambra, Arcadia, Monrovia, Sierra Madre, Glendora

Santa Clarita Valley – Santa Clarita, Valencia, Newhall, Saugus, Canyon Country (City of Santa Clarita); Stevenson Ranch and Castaic (LA County)

For the San Fernando Valley, see our San Fernando Valley page, our Van Nuys page and our Sherman Oaks page.

What we build most in Los Angeles

• Whole-home renovations of 1920s–1960s houses, where wiring, plumbing, windows, kitchen and baths are replaced under one permit. See also our remodeling services.
• Kitchen remodeling — opening closed floor plans in bungalows and post-war homes, often with a beam replacing a bearing wall.
• Bathroom remodeling — see how much a bathroom remodel costs, including a real remodel whose scope changed after demolition.
• Room additions, including second-story additions on small Westside and South Bay lots.
• ADUs and garage conversions — see below.
• New construction, including fire rebuilds in the Palisades and Altadena.
• Roofing — our post on roof permits in Los Angeles explains LADBS re-roof rules.
• Foundation and structural work — bolting, cripple-wall bracing, hillside caissons and retaining walls.
• Flooring, painting and windows and doors, including replacing single-pane wood windows with Title 24-compliant units.
• Patio covers, pavers, outdoor living and backyard remodeling.
• Plumbing and electrical as part of remodels — repipes, knob-and-tube replacement and 200-amp panel upgrades — by our licensed specialty-trade partners.

ADUs in Los Angeles

The City of Los Angeles follows and in places exceeds California’s ADU law. The points that matter most for a homeowner:

• A detached ADU of up to 800 sq ft with four-foot side and rear setbacks must be allowed on nearly any residential lot; the city permits detached units up to 1,200 sq ft of total floor area, and attached ADUs up to 50 percent of the primary home’s floor area.
• A junior ADU of up to 500 sq ft can be created within the existing house, and an ADU and a JADU can be built on the same lot.
• No replacement parking is required when a garage is converted, and no ADU parking is required within half a mile of public transit, which covers most flatland neighborhoods.
• Once a complete application is filed, the city has 60 days to approve or deny it.
• The LADBS ADU Standard Plan Program offers pre-approved designs, including a free city-owned plan, that shorten plan check.
• Separate cities and unincorporated county areas follow the same state minimums under their own ordinances, and HPOZ and hillside rules still apply.

Use our ADU rules calculator to check your lot, and read how much it costs to build an ADU, which walks through a real 600 sq ft detached ADU whose budget rose because of a deteriorated sewer line and an undersized electrical panel, both common in older Los Angeles homes.

Scheduling and travel from Van Nuys: an honest note

Our office and yard are in Van Nuys. For Hollywood, the Westside and Glendale/Pasadena, that is a 20–45 minute drive and has no practical effect on how we staff a job. For the South Bay, Long Beach and the far San Gabriel Valley it is closer to an hour each way in traffic, so we plan those projects with full-day crew schedules, stage materials on site and group inspections. We do not charge a travel premium, but we are candid at the estimate stage: whole-home renovations, additions, ADUs and rebuilds work well anywhere in the county, while a very small job in San Pedro may be better served by a contractor down the street, and we will tell you so.

How we work

One team handles design, engineering coordination, permitting and construction: a written estimate with allowances spelled out, a plan set we submit and shepherd through plan check, and a single point of contact through final inspection. The full sequence is on our About page. Before you sign with anyone, read how to hire a general contractor in Los Angeles without getting scammed and what a Los Angeles general contractor costs.

What homeowners say

From our Yelp reviews:

“Had to just say that Drake is the man! My wife and I just bought a new home that got extreme fire damage from the recent Altadena fire.” — Sagi L.

“They completely remodeled my kitchen and they turned out beautiful. The job came in within my budget including full 3rd design rendering.” — Yakir A.

“I hired the company to replace the flooring in two bedrooms of my condo. Tamar was the contractor.” — Karen Ann K.

More on our About page and on Yelp.

Frequently asked questions

Is my home permitted by LADBS or by a different building department?

Homes inside the City of Los Angeles — including Hollywood, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Westwood, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Venice, San Pedro and the San Fernando Valley — are permitted by the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS). Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Culver City, Torrance, the beach cities, Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank, Santa Clarita and Long Beach have their own building departments, and unincorporated areas such as Altadena and Marina del Rey are handled by LA County Building and Safety. Green Design and Build works in all three and confirms yours from the address.

What does a home renovation cost in Los Angeles?

A Los Angeles home renovation is usually budgeted per square foot, and our published guide to what a Los Angeles general contractor costs gives ranges of roughly $150 to $450 per square foot depending on the type of project and level of finish. Older homes with knob-and-tube wiring, galvanized plumbing or foundation problems sit toward the upper end because those systems must be corrected as part of the work. Green Design and Build provides an itemized written estimate after a free site visit rather than a per-square-foot guess.

Can I add an ADU to my Los Angeles property?

Yes, almost any single-family or multifamily lot in Los Angeles can add an ADU. The City of Los Angeles allows detached ADUs up to 1,200 sq ft, junior ADUs up to 500 sq ft inside the main house, and garage conversions with no replacement parking, and the city must act on a complete application within 60 days. Green Design and Build designs, permits and builds ADUs throughout Los Angeles County, and our ADU rules calculator shows what your lot allows.

Are you working on Palisades and Altadena fire rebuilds?

Yes, Green Design and Build is a licensed general contractor taking on fire-damage repair and rebuild projects in Pacific Palisades (City of Los Angeles, LADBS) and Altadena (unincorporated LA County). Both jurisdictions created dedicated rebuild permitting paths after the January 2025 fires, and rebuilt homes must meet current Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone construction standards and Title 24 energy rules. We do not publish rebuild counts; we would rather walk your lot and explain the current requirements in person.

What is an HPOZ and how does it affect my remodel?

An HPOZ, or Historic Preservation Overlay Zone, is a City of Los Angeles historic district — there are more than 30, including parts of Hancock Park, Angelino Heights, Highland Park and Miracle Mile — where exterior changes visible from the street are reviewed by the city’s Office of Historic Resources before a building permit can issue. Interior remodels are generally not reviewed, but window replacement, additions, roofing materials and front-facade changes are. Green Design and Build has worked within HPOZ review and builds it into the design schedule.

Do older Los Angeles homes need special handling during a remodel?

Yes, most Los Angeles homes built before 1978 require EPA lead-safe work practices during demolition and sanding, and homes from before the 1950s often have knob-and-tube wiring, galvanized supply lines and clay sewer lines that must be replaced as part of a permitted remodel. Green Design and Build inspects for these conditions during the estimate and prices the corrections up front rather than presenting them as change orders after demolition.

How far outside the Valley do you work?

Green Design and Build serves all of Los Angeles County from its Van Nuys office, along with Orange County, Ventura County and western Riverside County. Westside, Hollywood, Glendale and Pasadena projects are a 20–45 minute drive and are staffed like local jobs; South Bay, Long Beach and far San Gabriel Valley projects are scheduled with full-day crews and staged materials to account for the longer drive. There is no travel surcharge, and we will tell you honestly if a small project is a poor fit for the distance.

Are you licensed and insured for work in Los Angeles?

Yes, Green Design and Build holds California General Building Contractor license CSLB #1110975 and is licensed, bonded and insured for residential work throughout Los Angeles County. The license can be verified on the Contractors State License Board website. Regulated trades such as HVAC, plumbing and electrical on our projects are performed by licensed specialty-trade partners.

Start your Los Angeles project with a licensed general contractor

Tell us the address and what you want to build, and we will confirm the permitting authority, schedule a free site visit and give you a written, itemized estimate. We are open every day from 8 AM to 6 PM.