Masonry Contractor in Calabasas - Walls Built for Hillside Lots

Usually, yes. The city puts retaining walls among the larger projects that need complete plans and a formal review before its Building and Safety Division issues a permit, and it only leaves walls under 3 feet off the permit list when they aren't holding up extra weight above them, like a slope or a driveway. We check your wall against that before we start, file the permit when it's needed and meet the inspector, and if your address is in unincorporated LA County, county Public Works issues it instead.

In California, anyone building or altering a structure needs a license from the state Contractors State License Board when the project needs a building permit, uses employees, or has contracts totaling $1,000 or more in labor and materials. Most masonry jobs cross at least one of those lines, and the city checks a contractor's state license paperwork before it issues a permit. We're licensed and insured.

No, the City of Calabasas doesn't require a business license for businesses working inside the city. The county's business license applies in unincorporated parts of the county and a few cities, Westlake Village among them, for business activity that may affect public health, welfare or safety. For your job, the state contractor license above is the one that matters.

By the city's own guidance, almost any exterior change will need permits, and that includes garden walls over 42 inches tall, fountains and other decorative work. A job with exterior work also likely needs a planning sign-off the city calls a Zoning Clearance before anything else. A portable spa or hot tub needs no planning permit, but a brick wall, a stone fountain or an outdoor kitchen generally goes through the city.

The price comes down to the size of the job, the ground it sits on and how much old work has to come out, so we give it to you as a written estimate after I see the site. On hillside lots, access, footing depth and drainage behind a retaining wall add the most, and any job that needs a permit carries city fees, which are paid before the permit is issued. A repair that fixes the cause usually costs less over time than patching the same crack twice.

Build it in block, brick or stone, which don't burn, and find out first whether your property is in a high or very high fire hazard zone, because those properties may fall under the state's wildfire building rules and defensible space requirements. The state fire marshal's office says California's seasonally dry climate lends itself to wildfires, and the state has published a current fire hazard map for Calabasas. We check where your property stands before we plan the work.