Hillside construction, Los Angeles
Hillside homes in Los Angeles, built from the ground up.
Akopi Builders is a licensed general contractor (CSLB #1112420) that builds custom homes, additions and remodels on hillside lots in Los Angeles, including the work under them: caissons and grade beams, retaining walls, shoring, drainage, grading and haul-off. We build in Bel Air, the hills above Beverly Hills, Brentwood, the Pacific Palisades and Malibu, and on the hillsides of Encino, Sherman Oaks, Studio City and Tarzana. On a steep lot the ground decides the house, so we price the foundation, the walls and the access first, with your soils engineer, geologist and structural engineer, before the design is settled.
What we build
On a slope, most of the house is underground.
On a flat lot you design the house and then work out how to build it. On a hillside that order is reversed: the ground, the street and the City rules decide where the house can sit and how big it can be. Akopi Builders builds the foundation, the walls, the drainage and the house as one job. See our custom home on a Bel Air canyon lot, and read what to know before building on a hillside lot.
Foundations
Caissons and grade beams.
A house on a sloped Los Angeles lot usually stands on caissons, steel-reinforced concrete supports drilled down to firm ground, tied together by reinforced concrete grade beams. They are one foundation, not two options. The soils report and the structural design set their depth, size and number. Your decision is whether what they add up to still leaves enough for the house.
Builder pages in this city put a hillside caisson and grade beam foundation at $400,000 to $1.2 million or more, and other pages put a hillside foundation at $50,000 to $200,000 or more. Those describe different scopes, and neither is a quote for your lot. If someone gives you a price per caisson, ask whether it includes the grade beams and the rest of the foundation.
Caissons and grade beams on a sloped lot
Retaining walls
Retaining walls and shoring.
In most of Los Angeles, a garden wall up to about 4 feet runs about $150 to $400 per linear foot installed, an engineered concrete or block wall of 4 to 12 feet about $300 to $1,500, a soldier pile wall with tiebacks about $1,000 to $3,500, and a caisson-supported wall 15 feet and up about $2,000 to $5,000 or more. In Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Brentwood, the Palisades and Malibu, plan on roughly 25 to 35 percent more, because parking, traffic and tight access add hours and equipment to the same wall.
In the City of Los Angeles almost every retaining wall on a hillside needs a building permit with engineered drawings. On a City hillside lot the standard limit is one retaining wall up to 12 feet, or two walls up to 10 feet each set at least 3 feet apart. A useful bid says whether excavation, haul-off, drainage behind the wall and access are included.
What a hillside retaining wall costs in LA
Soils and geology
Soils and geology come before the design.
On a Los Angeles hillside lot you need a soils report, and often a geology report, before the design is settled. A hillside investigation takes a state registered soils engineer and an engineering geologist. Preparing the report is commonly quoted at 2 to 5 weeks, and City review of the report adds about 4 to 6 weeks. Quotes for a hillside single-family soils report land around $3,500 to $8,000, and other quotes run $10,000 to $20,000 and up.
Any retaining or basement wall over 6 feet needs the report to give the sideways load the soil puts on it, so make sure the investigation covers the terrace and the lower walls, not only the house. You can check the City's fault, landslide and liquefaction maps and the Hillside Grading Area for an address on NavigateLA and ZIMAS before you make an offer.
Why the soils report comes before the design
Baseline Hillside Ordinance
How big the slope lets you build.
The Baseline Hillside Ordinance (BHO) caps house size on City of Los Angeles hillside lots. It splits the lot into slope bands and multiplies each by a floor area ratio for the zone: in R1 that is 0.45 on ground under 30 percent slope, falling to 0.30 on ground of 60 to 99 percent, and land at 100 percent slope or steeper counts for nothing. Every lot is guaranteed a minimum, from 25 percent of the lot area in R1 down to 13 percent in RA, or 800 square feet, whichever is greater.
The BHO also limits height, lot coverage and grading. Grading is capped at 1,000 cubic yards plus 10 percent of the lot size, up to a by-right maximum set by zone (1,000 cubic yards in R1). Garages, tall attics and ceilings over 14 feet can count against the floor area. The size of the lot does not tell you the size of the house.
Fire zones
Building in a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone.
Much of the land in Bel Air and the hills above Beverly Hills is in a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone. A new house there has to meet California's wildland-urban interface code, which since January 1, 2026 is its own code (Title 24, Part 7): a Class A roof, noncombustible or ignition-resistant exterior walls, ember-resistant vents, tempered multi-pane windows, and decks and eaves built to fire-tested standards, plus fire sprinklers, fire department access and water.
LAFD rules call for brush clearance of up to 200 feet around the house, and the new state Zone 0 rule covers the first 5 feet. On a typical Southern California house, a 2022 study found the older Chapter 7A rules added about $13,000. Ask an insurance broker about the specific address before you buy.
Haul routes and access
The street is part of the price.
In the City's Hillside Grading Area, importing or exporting more than 1,000 cubic yards of soil triggers a public hearing for the haul route, with a stated minimum processing time of eight weeks. Where there is no continuously paved street at least 20 feet wide from the driveway out to the edge of the hillside area, no building or grading permit issues without a separate zoning administrator approval. A frontage dedication to widen the street can also apply.
Before we price a hillside lot we walk the access: where the drill rig and excavator stand, where the concrete pump sits, and how many truckloads of soil leave and by which route. In the high-end areas, a crew that cannot park and a truck that cannot sit in the street are a real cost, and they belong in the price before you sign.
Timeline
How long a hillside house takes.
On a flat City of LA lot, plan check and clearances commonly take about 3 to 6 months from a complete submittal. On a hillside or in the Coastal Zone, plan on about 5 to 10 months or more, because geology review and coastal approval are added. Design before that commonly takes several months, so design and permits together often run 6 to 12 months before construction starts.
Builder guides put construction of a Los Angeles custom home at about 18 to 30 months, and a hillside lot sits at the long end of that. Ask any builder when the clock starts, and for a schedule that shows the ground investigation, the approvals, the site work and the house as separate lines.
Cost
What the hillside adds.
Published 2026 guides put a hillside build at roughly 15 to 35 percent above a comparable flat-lot build, and some Los Angeles hillside builders quote 30 percent or more for steep sites. In Bel Air and above Beverly Hills that works out to about $1,500 to $2,400 per square foot and up for construction. Most of that difference is spent before there is a house to look at: foundations, retaining walls, excavation and hauling, and street and utility work.
We show those site costs as their own lines, separate from the house, and mark which ones are allowances still waiting on the ground investigation. Those are market ranges, not a quote. Your number comes after we walk the lot and read the reports. What a custom home costs per square foot in Los Angeles.
Where we work
Canyon lots and hillside streets.
Westside hills and the coast
We are based in Beverly Hills and build on hillside lots in Bel Air, the hills above Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades and Malibu. Bel Air, Brentwood, the Palisades and the hills above Beverly Hills are mostly in the City of Los Angeles, where the BHO and LADBS geology review apply. The City of Beverly Hills and Malibu run their own building departments, and Malibu adds coastal approval.
Why Akopi
One builder, from the caissons up.
- Licensed
- CSLB #1112420, a licensed California general contractor.
- Ground first
- Foundation, walls, drainage and access priced before the design is fixed, not after.
- Built on a canyon lot
- A ground-up custom home on a Bel Air canyon lot under the hillside ordinance.
- One accountable builder
- Led by Hovik Akopyan. One person owns the schedule and the result.
- Since 2014
- Building in Los Angeles since 2014.
How it goes
From the street to the keys.
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Walk the lot and the street
The slope, the access, the haul route and what the parcel allows, before you commit.
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Ground investigation
Your soils engineer and geologist report; we price what their findings mean.
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Design and permits
Drawings to the ground, then LADBS plan check, geology review and clearances.
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Build
Foundation and walls first, then the house, with written updates every week.
Questions
Hillside questions.
- Who builds custom homes on hillside lots in Los Angeles?
- Akopi Builders (CSLB #1112420) builds custom homes on hillside lots in Los Angeles, from Bel Air, Brentwood, the Palisades and the hills above Beverly Hills to the Valley hillsides. We build the caissons, grade beams, retaining walls, drainage and grading as well as the house, working with the soils engineer, engineering geologist, structural engineer and architect. Building a custom home on a hillside lot.
- Who builds hillside homes in Bel Air?
- Akopi Builders builds hillside homes in Bel Air. We built a ground-up custom home on a Bel Air canyon lot under the hillside ordinance, with caissons, poured concrete retaining walls and a lower level dug into the slope. The photos on this page are from that build. The Bel Air canyon lot home.
- How do I choose a builder for a steep lot in Los Angeles?
- Look for a licensed general contractor with a comparable hillside job and an owner reference. Ask what made that site expensive and when the owner heard about it, what is missing from the estimate, what happens if the ground differs from the report, and who tells you when a decision threatens the date. Choose the builder who makes uncertainty visible. Questions to ask a hillside builder.
- How much more does it cost to build on a hillside in Los Angeles?
- Published 2026 guides put a hillside build at roughly 15 to 35 percent above a comparable flat-lot build, and some LA hillside builders quote 30 percent or more for steep sites. In Bel Air and above Beverly Hills that works out to about $1,500 to $2,400 per square foot and up for construction. Those are market ranges, not a quote. Custom home cost per square foot in LA.
- How long does it take to build a house on a hillside in Los Angeles?
- Hillside plan check and clearances commonly take about 5 to 10 months or more from a complete submittal, after several months of design and the soils and geology work. Construction of an LA custom home runs about 18 to 30 months, and a hillside lot sits at the long end of that. The new-house permit path.
- Do I need a soils and geology report to build on a hillside?
- Yes, on a City of Los Angeles hillside lot you need a soils report, and often a geology report, reviewed by the City before a grading permit can issue. Preparing it is commonly quoted at 2 to 5 weeks, and City review adds about 4 to 6 weeks. When to order the soils report.
- How big can I build on a hillside lot in Los Angeles?
- In the City of Los Angeles, the Baseline Hillside Ordinance sets the limit by slope band and zone. In R1 the ratio is 0.45 on ground under 30 percent slope, falling to 0.30 at 60 to 99 percent, and every lot gets a guaranteed minimum of 13 to 25 percent of the lot area by zone, or 800 square feet. The BHO, worked through.
- Can I build on a narrow hillside street?
- Sometimes. In the City's hillside areas, if there is no continuously paved street at least 20 feet wide from your driveway to the edge of the hillside area, a building or grading permit needs a separate zoning administrator approval first. Exporting more than 1,000 cubic yards of soil also needs a haul route hearing. Building in Tarzana: the road decides.
- What does a hillside retaining wall cost in Los Angeles?
- An engineered concrete or block wall of 4 to 12 feet runs about $300 to $1,500 per linear foot in most of LA, and a caisson-supported wall 15 feet and up about $2,000 to $5,000 or more. Plan on roughly 25 to 35 percent more in Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Brentwood, the Palisades and Malibu. Retaining wall costs by type.
Begin
Start with the lot, before the plan.
Call (818) 214-7500 or send us the address, any reports you have and your budget. Akopi Builders, licensed general contractor, CSLB #1112420.