Permit Office (AHJ)
City of Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS)
Los Angeles, CA · Licensed Professional Engineering
Site engineering that clears local review — grading, drainage, and utilities designed to each jurisdiction's published standards from day one.
Los Angeles civil design must reserve space for the City's stormwater and Low Impact Development requirements, which can require capture, infiltration, treatment, or reuse before runoff reaches the municipal system. Hillside grading, haul routes, slope stability, flood and debris-flow screening, and Bureau of Engineering right-of-way work can all affect the site plan. We coordinate LADWP water and LA Sanitation sewer information with grading, fire access, and LID geometry early because those systems compete for limited urban and hillside space.
Code adoptions and local amendments change on multi-year cycles. The state source verification date is 2026-09-11; we verify the governing editions with City of Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) at project kickoff.
LADBS uses its online services for permit applications, plan-check cases, corrections, and inspections; eligible projects can use electronic plan review and the department's expedited plan-check service. The permit path can also require Planning, Fire, Public Works, and utility approvals, so the project address and scope should be screened before a complete submittal is assembled.
LADBS publishes Los Angeles amendments and directs applicants to the Los Angeles Municipal Code rather than a plain state model code. Seismic retrofit ordinances, hillside and grading rules, accessibility, fire/life-safety, and project-specific green-building provisions can change the design and review path; the current LADBS amendment package controls.
LADWP's commercial-service and interconnection processes govern new electric services, distributed generation, and water coordination in the city; LA Sanitation and Environment handles municipal sewer functions. Confirm available capacity, service voltage, transformer location, water/sewer requirements, and any solar or storage process with the respective agencies before fixing a large load.
The city's commercial work includes multifamily and mixed-use infill, entertainment and studio facilities, healthcare and institutional campuses, adaptive reuse, and older-building retrofit. LADBS seismic ordinances create a continuing retrofit market, while hillside parcels and dense public-right-of-way interfaces add entitlement, grading, and utility coordination to many projects.
Reviewed 2026-09-11. Code editions and local requirements can change; confirm the current requirements with the authority having jurisdiction before design.
With a team of licensed PEs and a multi-discipline engineering team, we're ready to take on projects of any size — and we turn quotes around fast. Send us your scope and get a clear proposal: deliverables, timeline, and fee.
Request a Proposal