General Contractor in Pacific Palisades

Pacific Palisades is made of distinct neighborhoods, and the house tells us most of what a remodel will involve. The Alphabet Streets, laid out from 1921, have smaller single-family houses on lots of 5,200 to 7,500 sq ft; the Huntington, El Medio Bluffs and Castellammare sit on the bluffs above the ocean; Rustic Canyon has post-war houses and older cabins down in the canyon; Marquez Knolls climbs the hillside; and the Highlands were built from the early 1970s on, with gated streets and condominiums as well as houses (neighborhood descriptions per Wikipedia). In the houses that are standing we remodel kitchens and bathrooms, re-plan whole homes and build additions, with cabinets and vanities from our own workshop and one fixed price in writing before work starts.

A remodel in a standing house follows the City's normal permit rules. A kitchen or bathroom remodel with no structural changes is item I.2 on LADBS's Express Permit list (Information Bulletin P/GI 2026-003, still served at its original 2020-003 web address): there is no plan check, and LADBS issues the permit online as an e-permit (LADBS Express Permits). Moving a wall or cutting a new opening sends the job to plan check. Under the Coastal Act, improvements to an existing single-family house need no coastal development permit (Public Resources Code 30610(a)), apart from the classes the Coastal Commission lists in 14 CCR 13250, such as a house within 50 ft of a coastal bluff edge or an addition of 10% or more of the floor area on a lot between the sea and the first public road. An interior remodel on a parcel without those flags has no coastal review, and we check the Coastal Zone and bluff flags for your address on ZIMAS at the first visit.

Pacific Palisades has been in a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone since 1999 (City Planning), and the California Wildland-Urban Interface Code (formerly Chapter 7A) governs the outside of the house there: a replacement window, an exterior vent, an addition or a new structure is built to it, with a Class A roof, ember-resistant vents, rated wall assemblies and multi-pane glazing with a tempered pane (LA County code summary), and even a re-roof on the Express Permit list has to use a Class A covering inside the zone (LADBS bulletin). Work that stays inside the house is not affected. If the house took smoke, testing and remediation are a separate scope finished before our crew starts; the AB 1642 and AB 1795 rules (Office of the Governor) are summarized on our whole-home remodeling page.

On a lot that burned, the rebuild program applies instead: the Mayor's Executive Order 1 for a like-for-like house, Executive Order 8 for a zoning-compliant home in the Coastal Zone that does not fit that box. The rules, the support center and our six steps are in the fire rebuild section below and on our Pacific Palisades fire rebuild page.