General Contractor in Montebello

Green Design and Build is a licensed general contractor (CSLB #1110975) based at 16120 Sherman Way in Van Nuys, about 25 miles northwest of Montebello. We are a full-service residential general contractor and design-build remodeler for projects of every size — kitchens, bathrooms, ADUs, room additions and whole-home renovations — serving homeowners across Los Angeles County, Orange County, Ventura County, western Riverside County and western San Bernardino County. Led by Dekel Sofer, we have completed hundreds of projects and hold a 4.7-star rating across 146 Yelp reviews.

Montebello is an old city by Los Angeles County standards — incorporated on 16 October 1920, the 35th city in the county — and it is built on an oil field. Both of those facts show up in real projects here: in the age and condition of the housing stock, and in a well-review step before permits issue that most homeowners have never heard of. This page covers what building in Montebello actually involves.

Montebello runs its own permits, four days a week

The Building and Safety Division sits within Planning and Community Development in the West Wing of City Hall, 1600 W. Beverly Boulevard. It issues building, electrical, plumbing, mechanical and grading permits and performs plan check and inspections.

The city runs a four-day week. Building and Safety is open Monday to Thursday and closed Friday, with walk-ins available all day. Inspections also run Monday to Thursday only. There is no Friday inspection in Montebello, and a schedule built on a five-day inspection week will slip.

Useful numbers: Permit Technicians (323) 887-1497, Building Inspector (323) 887-1458, Planning (323) 887-1478. Applications can be submitted by email to the Building and Safety inbox.

Plan check is electronic, through the city’s goPost portal. Even minor permits route through it — the city’s own window-replacement instruction is to upload to goPost.

Zoning is Title 17 of the Municipal Code, with single-family standards in Chapter 17.14 and the numeric development standards in the residential table at Chapter 17.10. Because those figures are periodically amended, we confirm the current setbacks, height and coverage for your specific parcel with Planning at the start of a project rather than working from a printed table.

Two Specific Plans supersede the base zoning inside their boundaries: the Downtown Montebello Specific Plan, roughly bounded by Greenwood Avenue, Los Angeles Avenue, the Rio Hondo Channel and Cleveland Avenue, and the Montebello Hills Specific Plan. If your address falls inside either, those rules govern.

The city adopted a new General Plan on 10 April 2024, covering 2024 to 2040. It replaced a plan whose Seismic Safety Element dated back to 1975 — worth knowing if you are looking at older approvals or hazard mapping for your street.

The oil field is a permitting step, not a rumour

Oil was discovered in Montebello by Standard Oil on the Anita Baldwin property in 1917, and by 1920 the Montebello field was producing one-eighth of California’s crude. The field covers roughly 15 square kilometres and overlaps developed parts of the city.

The number that matters for construction: as of 2018 the Montebello Oil Field had 832 wells — 208 active, 20 idle and 604 abandoned. Six hundred abandoned wells under a built-out city is not a historical curiosity, it is a site condition.

The mechanism is CalGEM’s Construction Site Plan Review Program, under Public Resources Code section 3208.1. CalGEM helps local permitting agencies identify and review oil or gas wells located near or beneath proposed structures, and the local agency implements CalGEM’s pre-construction well requirements before issuing building or grading permits. On a Montebello addition or ADU with a new foundation, that review belongs in the programme from the start, not discovered at plan check.

Two things we will not tell you, because they are not established: the USGS has found no conclusive evidence that oil and gas development has adversely affected groundwater in and near the Montebello field, and we have found no Montebello methane zone or soil-gas ordinance of the kind the City of Los Angeles operates. If anyone quotes you an LA methane requirement for a Montebello address, ask which ordinance they mean.

Montebello housing stock

Montebello is not a pre-war city, despite its 1920 incorporation — it is a 1940s-to-1970s city, and that is what drives the work.

Built	Share of occupied homes
1939 or earlier	6.3%
1940–1959	41.1%
1960–1979	39.0%
1980–1999	10.6%
2000 or later	2.9%

Just over 80 percent of Montebello homes were built between 1940 and 1979, and the city’s Housing Element puts roughly 69 percent of the stock before 1970. Only about one home in twelve predates 1940.

What that means in practice on a Montebello remodel: original or lightly upgraded electrical panels, dated supply plumbing, framing built to codes several cycles old, and — for anything built before 1978 — lead-based paint, which the city’s own Housing Element flags directly. Asbestos in flooring, texture and duct wrap is a live consideration in the same vintage. We test rather than assume, and we price abatement as its own line rather than burying it.

Montebello Hills is new construction, not old stock. It is a 488-acre Specific Plan area approved for 1,200 residential units, with the Final Environmental Impact Report certified in June 2015 and filings continuing as recently as January 2025. It sits on the oil field, with a large share of the acreage set aside as open space including habitat for the federally threatened California gnatcatcher. If you are buying there, you are buying into a phased new-build area with its own plan, not into the 1950s flats.

What we build in Montebello

• Room additions, including additions with a bathroom or shower — the most common request we get here as families outgrow a 1950s two-bedroom.
• Kitchen remodeling — opening up mid-century plans, with the panel and supply-plumbing upgrades that come with the vintage.
• Bathroom remodeling.
• Whole-home renovations of 1940s and 1950s stucco homes.
• Foundation and structural work, including seismic upgrades.
• ADUs and garage conversions.
• Roofing, windows and doors, flooring, painting, patio covers, pavers and outdoor living.
• Plumbing and electrical upgrades as part of remodels, performed by licensed tradespeople.

ADUs in Montebello — read this before you rely on a handout

There is a live gap between Montebello’s ADU ordinance and state law, and homeowners should know about it.

On 8 October 2025 the California Department of Housing and Community Development wrote to Montebello stating that the most recent ADU ordinance on file dates from 2019, that it “may be outdated and out of compliance with State ADU Law,” and directing the city to justify it or submit a plan to repeal or amend it. HCD’s letters emphasise that noncompliant local ADU ordinances become null and void. Among the changes HCD flagged as postdating the ordinance: owner-occupancy requirements are prohibited, JADUs require no parking, deed restrictions on ADUs are not allowed, and size floors of 850 square feet (1,000 for multi-bedroom units) apply.

Where a local handout conflicts with state law, state law controls. We design to the state-law floor and confirm the city’s current position at pre-screening, so a plan does not get built around a rule that no longer applies. Our ADU rules calculator shows the state-law floor for your lot.

What the city’s own ADU material has set out: one detached or attached ADU plus one junior ADU on a single-family lot; a detached ADU up to 1,200 square feet; an attached ADU at 1,000 square feet or 50 percent of the existing dwelling, whichever is less; a JADU no more than 500 square feet, inside the existing house, with a separate kitchen required and a separate entrance. Detached ADU height of 16 feet, up to 18 feet by right in a transit area and up to 20 feet to match a roof pitch; attached ADUs to 25 feet. Setbacks of 4 feet from side and rear lines, with 10 feet of separation from other buildings, or 5 feet with a one-hour firewall throughout. Planning review runs about two weeks before the building permit application.

Ground conditions

Part of Montebello falls within the Whittier quadrangle, where the California Geological Survey’s seismic hazard mapping shows the liquefaction zone covering more than half the quadrangle, across the Downey Plain. Earthquake-induced landslide zones cover only about 3.5 percent of that quadrangle and are concentrated in the Puente Hills. Montebello also extends into adjacent quadrangles, so we check the state hazard map by address rather than generalising — liquefaction mapping is what drives a geotechnical requirement on a new foundation.

A local rule that catches gut remodels

Montebello operates a Vacant Property Registration and Mandatory Maintenance Program under Chapter 8.40 of the Municipal Code. Vacant residential property must be registered annually by 31 January, with a non-prorated registration fee and a monthly monitoring fee, weekly inspections, graffiti removed within 24 hours, broken windows replaced within 10 days and all openings secured. Property vacant for 180 consecutive days or more requires security personnel.

If your project empties the house for months — a gut remodel, a major addition, a pre-sale renovation — this applies to you. It is the kind of thing nobody mentions until a notice arrives. We flag it at the site visit so it can be planned for or avoided by sequencing the work.

Utilities — and the water question

Southern California Edison provides electric service, so a 200-amp panel upgrade is coordinated with SCE alongside the city’s electrical permit and inspection. Gas is Southern California Gas Company. Sewer mains are owned and operated by Montebello Public Works, with treatment by the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts.

Water is the genuinely unusual one. Montebello does not have a single citywide water utility. The city lists four providers serving different parts of the city: California Water Service, the Montebello Land and Water Company, San Gabriel Valley Water Company together with the City of Montebello Water Department, and the South Montebello Irrigation District.

Which one serves your address is address-specific. That matters the moment a project needs a meter upsized or a new service run for an ADU, because it is a different agency with a different application process depending on which side of a boundary you sit. Establishing the correct purveyor is one of the first things we do on a Montebello job.

What homeowners say

From our Google reviews:

I hired GDB for a big project around my house and couldn’t be happier! Drake was incredibly kind and professional, him and his team were very thorough and patient (I can be a perfectionist) and the results are absolutely stunning! Two of my other friends have already started projects with him.

Yarden Joy

Joel has been great to work with beginning to end. He is easy to communicate with and makes sure the job is done right. We are extremely happy with the work that was done.

Mueid Chowdhury

More on our About page.

Frequently asked questions

Do abandoned oil wells affect building in Montebello?

They can. The Montebello Oil Field was discovered in 1917 and, as of 2018, had 832 wells, of which 604 were abandoned, across roughly 15 square kilometres overlapping developed parts of the city. Under CalGEM’s Construction Site Plan Review Program and Public Resources Code section 3208.1, local permitting agencies identify and review wells near or beneath proposed structures and implement CalGEM’s pre-construction requirements before issuing a building or grading permit. Green Design and Build builds that review into the programme at the start rather than meeting it at plan check.

Who supplies water to my house in Montebello?

It depends on the address. Unusually, Montebello has four water providers rather than one: California Water Service, the Montebello Land and Water Company, San Gabriel Valley Water Company with the City of Montebello Water Department, and the South Montebello Irrigation District. This matters when a project needs a larger meter or a new service for an ADU, because each is a separate agency with its own process. Green Design and Build identifies the correct purveyor before designing the service.

How old are most Montebello homes?

Just over 80 percent were built between 1940 and 1979, and roughly 69 percent predate 1970. Only about 6 percent were built in 1939 or earlier. On a remodel that usually means original or lightly upgraded electrical, dated supply plumbing, and — for anything before 1978 — lead-based paint, which the city’s Housing Element flags directly. Green Design and Build tests rather than assumes and prices abatement as its own line item.

Can I still build an ADU in Montebello?

Yes. State ADU law applies regardless of the local ordinance, and where a local rule conflicts with state law, state law controls. That is currently relevant here: in October 2025 the state Department of Housing and Community Development wrote to Montebello noting its ADU ordinance on file dates from 2019 and may be out of compliance. Green Design and Build designs to the state-law standard and confirms the city’s current position at pre-screening.

What days does Montebello do inspections?

Monday through Thursday. Building and Safety is closed on Fridays, so both the counter and inspections run on a four-day week. Green Design and Build schedules around that rather than losing a day per cycle to it.

Are you licensed to work in Montebello?

Yes. Green Design and Build holds California General Building Contractor licence CSLB #1110975 and is licensed, bonded and insured for residential work in Montebello and throughout Los Angeles County. The licence can be verified on the Contractors State License Board website. HVAC, plumbing and electrical work on our projects is performed by licensed tradespeople.

A recent Montebello project

A room addition with a bathroom and shower in Montebello, finished in 2025 — framing, sheathing, stucco and flatwork through to the finished room. The pool and timber deck were in the same contract. See the full set on our Montebello room addition page.

Plan your Montebello remodel

Tell us the street and what you want to build, and we will schedule a free site visit, identify your water purveyor and any well-review requirement, and give you a written, itemised estimate.