General Contractor in Santa Monica, CA

Green Design and Build is a licensed residential general contractor (CSLB #1110975) working in Santa Monica from our Van Nuys office. Santa Monica is not the City of Los Angeles and does not use LADBS. It runs its own Building and Safety division, its own plan check, its own online submittal portal and its own set of requirements that catch homeowners out — a water meter questionnaire on almost any job that touches plumbing, urban runoff rules on larger remodels, and a Coastal Zone that covers a large part of the city. If your contractor treats a Santa Monica permit like a Los Angeles permit, you will lose weeks.

Santa Monica runs its own building department, and that decides your permit

Every permit for a Santa Monica house goes through the City of Santa Monica, not the county and not LADBS. Plans are submitted electronically through ProjectDox, and the city sorts residential work into three paths. Same-day review at the public counter covers the smaller items — a reroof, a mechanical replacement, facade work. Standard plan review covers everything above those thresholds, which is where almost all remodels, additions and ADUs land. There is also an express path for qualifying work.

Two things about Santa Monica plan check are worth knowing before you start. First, the city itself states that plan review timelines are currently running beyond its estimated timeframes, so a schedule built on the published figure is optimistic. Second, submittals have to be complete on day one — the checklist for your project type, all supporting documents and the fees, together. An incomplete submittal does not start the clock, it just sits.

The Santa Monica requirements that surprise people

• Water Meter Sizing Questionnaire. Single-family projects that add or modify plumbing fixtures have to submit one. A bathroom remodel that moves a fixture, a kitchen island with a sink, an ADU with its own bathroom — all of them trigger it. It is a small form that stops a submittal cold when it is missing.
• Urban runoff mitigation. Redevelopment projects above the city’s thresholds must handle stormwater on site with Low Impact Development measures, or pay an in-lieu fee. On a large remodel or a new detached ADU with hardscape, this is a real line item, not a formality.
• Underground utilities. Santa Monica Municipal Code section 7.04.820 requires utilities to be undergrounded, with a waiver available by application. On some lots this is straightforward; on others it changes the budget.
• Public Works plan check runs in parallel. Engineering and Street Services review sits alongside Building and Safety, and its checklist is uploaded to the same ProjectDox submittal. Two reviewers, one submittal.
• Shoring near a property line. If your project needs tieback license agreements, the city advises allowing two to three months for that process before a building permit issues. That is a schedule item most homeowners never hear about until it is in the way.

The Coastal Zone question

A large part of Santa Monica sits inside the California Coastal Zone. Depending on exactly where your property is and what you are proposing, a project can require a Coastal Development Permit in addition to the building permit, which is a separate approval on a separate timeline. Whether it applies to your house is a question of location and scope, and it is worth confirming with the city at the very start rather than after drawings are done — the answer can change what is worth designing. This is the single biggest scheduling difference between a Santa Monica remodel and the same remodel two miles inland.

Santa Monica neighborhoods and ZIP codes we serve

We work across all of Santa Monica: 90401 downtown and the civic area, 90402 north of Montana, 90403 Wilshire–Montana and Mid-City, 90404 Pico and Mid-City, and 90405 Ocean Park and Sunset Park. Each of those reads differently on a job. North of Montana means larger lots and period houses where the design review conversation matters. Ocean Park and Sunset Park mean small lots, tight side yards and neighbours close enough that staging and parking have to be planned rather than improvised. Downtown means multi-family and mixed-use next door, and stricter constraints on noise and hours.

What Santa Monica houses are made of

Santa Monica’s housing stock is older than most of our service area, and that is the practical difference on site. A great deal of it is pre-war: Spanish Colonial Revival and Craftsman bungalows from the 1920s and 1930s, then post-war stucco through the 1940s and 1950s, with mid-century and later infill mixed through. In houses of that age we expect to find, and price for, knob-and-tube or early cloth-sheathed wiring still live in places, galvanized supply lines that have narrowed with corrosion, cast iron drain lines at the end of their service life, and raised foundations with cripple walls that were never bolted to the sill.

Being near the ocean adds its own list: salt air is hard on exterior metal, flashing and fasteners, and moisture in crawl spaces is a more common finding here than it is in the Valley. None of this is a reason not to remodel a Santa Monica house. It is a reason to open walls with a realistic allowance rather than a hopeful one, which is why our site visit looks at the panel, the crawl space and the sewer line before we write a number.

What we build most in Santa Monica

• Whole-home renovations of 1920s–1950s houses, where wiring, plumbing, windows and insulation are dealt with at the same time as the kitchen and bathrooms rather than in stages.
• Kitchen remodels, very often including removing the wall between a small original kitchen and the dining room — which on a Santa Monica bungalow is usually structural. We cover what that involves in our guide to removing a load-bearing wall.
• Bathroom remodels, where the fixture move triggers the water meter questionnaire and, in older houses, usually exposes drain line that should be replaced while it is open.
• Room additions on small lots, where setbacks and lot coverage decide what is possible long before design does.
• ADUs and garage conversions, including detached garages off the alley, which is a very common Santa Monica configuration.
• Foundation and structural work, including bolting and cripple wall bracing on raised-foundation houses.

ADUs in Santa Monica

State ADU law sets a floor that Santa Monica, like every California city, has to meet, and our ADU rules hub and ADU rules calculator show what that floor is. What differs in Santa Monica is the overlay: the Coastal Zone question above, tight lots that make a detached unit harder to place, and alley-facing garages that make a conversion easier than average. A garage conversion ADU runs $100,000 to $200,000 as a typical Los Angeles budgeting range, and a detached new-construction unit starts around $180,000 to $260,000 for 400 to 500 square feet. A junior ADU inside the house is the least expensive route at $60,000 to $150,000.

These are typical Los Angeles budgeting estimates, not a price list or a quote. Your project can come in lower or higher depending on the house, the scope and the finishes; the only real number is a written proposal after a site visit.

Permits in Santa Monica: how we run it

We handle design, engineering, permitting and construction under one licence, so there is one company answering for the schedule rather than three pointing at each other. On a Santa Monica project that means we confirm the Coastal Zone position and the review path before drawings start, prepare the ProjectDox submittal complete — checklists, water meter questionnaire, Public Works items and fees together — and manage corrections directly with the reviewers rather than passing them back to you. Our design-build process page walks through each stage, and how contractor payments work in California explains what you should and should not be asked to pay up front.

Santa Monica is also a city where neighbours notice. We plan staging, parking and delivery windows before work starts, because on a Sunset Park street with no driveway that detail is the difference between a smooth job and a complaint.

Frequently asked questions

Who issues building permits in Santa Monica?

The City of Santa Monica does, through its own Building and Safety division at the Permit Services Center — not LADBS and not Los Angeles County. Plans are submitted electronically through ProjectDox. Public Works Engineering and Street Services reviews alongside Building and Safety on the same submittal, and can be reached on (310) 458-8721.

Do I need a Coastal Development Permit to remodel my Santa Monica house?

It depends on where the property sits and what you are proposing. A large part of Santa Monica is inside the California Coastal Zone, and projects there can require a Coastal Development Permit in addition to the building permit, on its own timeline. Confirm it with the city before design work starts rather than after, because the answer can change what is worth drawing.

How long does Santa Monica plan check take?

Minor work can be approved same-day at the counter. Anything larger goes to standard plan review, and the city currently states that its plan review timelines are running beyond the estimated timeframes it publishes. We build schedules on that reality and submit complete on the first attempt, because an incomplete submittal does not start the clock at all.

Why does my bathroom remodel need a water meter form?

Santa Monica requires a Water Meter Sizing Questionnaire on single-family projects that add or modify plumbing fixtures. Moving a toilet or a sink, adding a kitchen island with plumbing, or building an ADU with its own bathroom all trigger it. It is a small document, but a submittal without it will not move.

What ZIP codes do you serve in Santa Monica?

All of them: 90401, 90402, 90403, 90404 and 90405, covering Downtown, North of Montana, Wilshire–Montana, Mid-City, Pico, Ocean Park and Sunset Park. We work throughout Los Angeles County and across Orange, Ventura, western Riverside and western San Bernardino counties.

Are you licensed to work in Santa Monica?

Yes. Green Design and Build holds California contractor licence CSLB #1110975 and is licensed, bonded and insured. A California licence is issued by the state and valid statewide, so no separate city licence is needed to build in Santa Monica — but the permit itself is always the city’s. You can verify any contractor’s licence on the Contractors State License Board website, and you should.

Sources

Permit rules on this page are City of Santa Monica rules and can change. Confirm what applies to your address with the department before you plan around a date. Cost ranges and durations are our own, from jobs we have built.

• City of Santa Monica, Building Permits and Plan Review — Santa Monica’s own plan review and permit route, which is separate from LADBS.

Last reviewed 17 September 2026.

Plan your Santa Monica project

Send us your address and what you have in mind. We will walk the house, check the panel, the crawl space and the sewer, tell you where you sit on the Coastal Zone and the review path, and give you a written, itemised estimate. The site visit and the estimate are free, and the proposal follows within 48 hours. See typical budgeting ranges on our pricing page, what is covered on our warranty page, and payment options on our financing page.