ADU Construction and Garage Conversions in Brentwood

Brentwood is City of Los Angeles jurisdiction. Your ADU permit is an LADBS permit and the zoning review is a Los Angeles zoning review. Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Malibu each run their own building departments with their own submittal rules, which is why experience at one counter does not transfer automatically to another.

Ministerial review is the part owners misread. It means the application is measured against written standards with no hearing and no discretionary vote. Neighbors hold no veto. The city either finds the drawings compliant or issues corrections. Sixty days from a complete application, and fifteen business days for the city to state in writing whether the application is complete.

LADBS also maintains a Standard Plan Program. Private licensed architects and engineers design accessory dwelling units that the department pre-approves for code compliance. When an owner selects one, LADBS reviews the site-specific factors for that property, including zoning and foundation requirements, which shortens plan check. Standard plans also constrain the design. Our estimating desk lays both routes side by side against what you want the unit to be, then recommends one.

Brentwood parcels carry room that most of Los Angeles does not, so placement becomes the real design decision. A detached unit at the rear of a deep lot keeps the main house's sightlines clean and gives the unit a private entry. A unit set to the side can share a driveway and shorten the utility trench. A conversion of an existing detached garage inherits its footprint and its foundation, which changes the structural conversation entirely.

We plot the buildable envelope before anything gets drawn: setbacks, height, coverage, recorded easements, mature trees, and the pool or hardscape already in place. Then we plot the trench. Sewer, water, gas, and electrical runs on a large lot cover real distance, and distance is scope. Panel capacity at the main house decides whether the project carries a service upgrade.

Landscape matters more here than on a small lot. A detached unit dropped into the middle of a designed garden reads as an intrusion. Set against a hedge line or tucked behind established planting, it reads as if it had always been there.

Three uses come up most often. A guest house for family who stay for weeks at a time. A home office genuinely separate from the household, with its own entrance and its own quiet. Housing for a parent or an adult child who needs independence and proximity at once.

Each use changes the plan. A guest house wants a full bath and real closet volume. An office wants daylight, acoustic separation, dedicated circuits, and network run in conduit instead of a wireless bridge. A parent's unit wants a curbless shower, blocking in the walls for future grab bars, wider door openings, and a level entry from the driveway. Building those in during framing is a matter of blocking and a few hours. Adding them later means opening finished walls.

We ask what the unit is for before we ask what it should look like.

Parts of Brentwood climb, and a sloped parcel changes the project at the foundation. Soils and geology drive the design, so we bring a soils engineer in before the layout is fixed. The report determines the foundation: a stepped footing, caissons, a grade beam, or a combination of them.

Grading, drainage, and retaining become their own scope on a slope, with their own review. Water has to be carried off the pad and away from the property below. Access is a hard constraint. A narrow hillside street sets the size of truck that can reach you, which sets how material arrives and how spoil leaves.

We price hillside work off the report and the survey. An ADU quoted from a photograph of a slope is a guess, and guesses turn into change orders.

A Brentwood ADU that reads as an outbuilding damages the property it sits on. Roof pitch, eave depth, fascia profile, window proportion, stucco texture or siding reveal, and the exact trim details on the main house get measured and carried across. Traditional, Spanish Revival, mid-century, and contemporary each set their own rules, and the unit follows the rules the main house already established.

Finish level carries across too. If the main house has flush baseboards, level five drywall, and solid-core doors, the unit gets the same. We hold a painting and decorating classification and self-perform that work, so drywall finish, caulk lines, sanding between coats, and the final coat stay with our own finish crew.

Most of this happens while the family is living on the property. Floor protection and dust containment go up before demolition. Deliveries stage away from the motor court and the main entry. The crew parks where you direct. Work hours follow the city's ordinance and your household's routine, and the site gets swept clean at the end of every day.

Build And Decor Construction is a licensed and fully insured Los Angeles general contracting firm with more than 400 completed projects. CSLB License #1113888, held by license holder Sebastian Moreno Rivera, carries Class B General Building along with Class C-33 Painting and Decorating. Everything we install carries a one-year workmanship warranty.

Clients rate our work 5.0 stars on average across 88 reviews. Ratings current as of August 2026.

We take a limited number of projects at a time so your project lead and the same field crew stay with the job from excavation to punch list. Start with a free on-site estimate. Call (949) 558-9738 or reach us at buildanddecorconstruction.com. Our office is at 8033 Sunset Blvd #336, Los Angeles, CA 90046.