Riverside County is large and the boundaries are not intuitive. A mailing address that says Temecula, Murrieta or Corona does not necessarily mean the property is inside those city limits — large stretches between the cities are unincorporated county. For a lighting job that needs a permit, that single fact changes who issues it, who inspects it, what it costs and how long it takes. Why the mailing address misleads The postal service draws delivery areas; cities draw boundari

Ramps get built under time pressure, which is exactly when people skip the permit question. It is worth two phone calls, because the answer determines whether this is a three-day project or a three-week one. The general rule A permanent ramp attached to a dwelling, with footings, railings and a structure, is generally a building permit. It is construction, it affects egress, and it involves railings that carry loads. A temporary modular ramp that sits on the ground and is not

A large share of homes in Temecula and Murrieta sit inside a homeowners association, and most backyard projects need the association's approval before anything is built. This is separate from the city. The HOA does not issue permits and the city does not enforce HOA rules. You may need both, and they have nothing to do with each other. Homeowners regularly discover this after the permit is in hand and the crew is scheduled. What an HOA actually controls Typically an architect

The question comes up on almost every backyard project: do I need a permit to pour a slab? The honest answer is that the slab usually is not the problem. California's building code exempts a lot of ordinary flatwork from a building permit, and most cities follow that. What pulls a permit is almost always what you are putting on the pad, or what you had to change to build it. Understanding that distinction is what keeps a two-day job from becoming a three-month one. The flatwo

Most people planning a paver driveway are thinking about one decision: which paver. Color, pattern, border. That is the last decision, not the first. The first decision is made for you, by geography. A driveway crosses a line that most homeowners have never had to think about — the edge of the public right-of-way. Everything on your side is a building department matter. Everything on the street side belongs to the city, and it comes with its own permit, its own standard drawi

A fire feature is the most requested thing in a Southern California backyard and the one with the widest gap between what people picture and what is allowed on their lot. The confusion comes from a single distinction that almost nobody makes out loud: a permanently installed gas fire feature and a wood-burning fire are two different things under two different sets of rules. Start here: which one are you building? A built-in gas fire pit or fireplace is an appliance. It is con

An accessory dwelling unit is the largest thing most people will ever build in a backyard, and the rules around it are the most favorable they have ever been in California. They are also widely misunderstood, in both directions. People assume their city can say no when it cannot, and assume their lot can take one when it may not. Those are two different questions and they get answered by two different sets of facts. What the state guarantees, and your city cannot take away Th

The most expensive backyard mistake in this county is not choosing the wrong material or hiring the wrong crew. It is building things in the wrong order. Concrete poured before the gas line is trenched. A patio built before anyone worked out where the water goes. A pool deck finished, then a kitchen added, then the deck opened back up to feed it. Every one of those is a real job we have been called to fix, and every one was avoidable on paper. Here is the order that works, an

There is no California fence height. There is a Temecula fence height, a Murrieta fence height, and a different answer again if your address turns out to be in unincorporated county. People move here from Los Angeles or San Diego, apply what they knew, and build something that has to come down. Here is what actually applies in southwest Riverside County. Temecula: three feet in front, six everywhere else The front setback is the strict one. Solid fences, hedges and walls in t

Everyone plans an outdoor kitchen by picking the grill and the countertop. Those are the two decisions that matter least. The island is masonry and finish work, and it is the straightforward part. What decides whether the project goes smoothly, passes inspection and is safe to stand next to is gas, electrical and how the island itself is built to handle a leak. The rule that surprises people, and it is a safety rule A BBQ island is usually built as a sealed masonry box with a

Three things decide how a concrete driveway or patio performs in southwest Riverside County, and none of them is the finish you picked from a photo. They are the soil under it, the temperature the day it was placed, and a permit most homeowners here do not know exists until the inspector mentions it. One: the soil moves, and your slab moves with it Much of the Temecula and Murrieta area sits on expansive clay. Clay takes on water and swells, then dries out and shrinks. Over a

In southwest Riverside County the hard part of a backyard project is almost never the design. It is finding out which set of rules your particular lot falls under, because two houses on the same street can answer that question differently. Here is what actually governs a patio cover or a deck in Temecula, Murrieta, Wildomar and Lake Elsinore, and the layer that most homeowners here do not find out about until plan check. First: when you need a permit at all The thresholds are

A driveway gate looks like a product you buy. In Los Angeles it is closer to a small permitted structure that happens to move, and it sits at the boundary between three different sets of rules: zoning, the public right of way, and gate safety. Most of the gates that get into trouble here did not fail because of the steel. They failed because of where they were put. The first question: where does your property actually end? Almost every homeowner assumes the property line is a

This is the most common backyard question in Los Angeles, and the short answer is three numbers. The long answer is why those numbers are not the whole story on most lots. The three numbers The rule lives in Section 12.22 C.20 (f) of the Zoning Code. In most residential areas: In the required front yard, a fence or wall may be up to 3 feet 6 inches In the required side and rear yards, up to 6 feet Depending on lot size and location, the side and rear limit may be increased to

If you manage or sit on the board of an older wood-frame building in Los Angeles with parking or open space at the ground floor, there is a good chance the city has already written to you about it, possibly years ago. This is the ordinance that letter came from, what the timeline actually was, and what your position is now. The ordinance Ordinance 183893 took effect on 22 November 2015 and was amended by Ordinance 184081 in February 2016. It sits in the Los Angeles Municipal

Retaining walls are the hardest backyard item for a homeowner to buy, for a specific reason: everything that determines whether the wall stands is buried on the day it is finished. Two walls can look identical and be completely different structures. The only place the difference is visible is in the quote — if the quote says anything at all. First: does it need an engineer? Two triggers, and the second is the one people miss. **Height.** Jurisdictions generally require a perm

Most homeowners meet California's energy code for the first time at plan check, as a surprise, after the design is finished. It is not an obscure rule. Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations contains the state's building energy efficiency standards, it is updated on a cycle, and it applies to alterations and additions — not only to new houses. For the broader sustainability picture, see the green building handbook. This is specifically about what the code requires of

Video of Balcony collapse in Malibu, CA. This could be 100% prevented with preventive maintenance and an annual structural assessment.

Learn How Building Permits Made Easy Solving The Real Problems Renovations without permits can become a real headache. That is why we felt to make a video to address a real problem, which is - - why we have unpermitted structures and how to make building permits easier to get! Can People Build Without Permits? Why do people try to build without permits? If you live in Los Angeles and the adjacent cities, the short answer for the first question is NO! You cannot build structu

HPOZ for those who accidentally fell upon this page, means Historical Preservation Overlay Zone. For those who purposely searched and found us here, this acronym is the theme of many nightmares of homeowners in certain areas in Los Angeles, especially if you seek to get HPOZ approval, and get permits to accomplish any construction or renovations on you property. Historical Preservation Overlay Zones are not only found in Los Angeles, in fact these areas are also found all ove