hi all! long time lurker! i have questions about building a home on a los angeles hillside. the price of undeveloped lots are really attractive to me.
been reading (but haven't spoken to anyone yet) about building a contemporary / modern 3 bedroom home (~2000 sqft?) and also about building on graded land.
i'm wondering what the costs are at each step? i think i understand the high-level steps but am completely ignorant of a few major questions:
(1) the costs and the specifics for financing the land purchase
(2) estimated time for when I will be able to move in once we purchase the land.
or perhaps the better question is whether this is even possible for me given the cash constraints (lets say I have 300K in cash for this entire thing).
Generally, from homes to large scale developments, people buy land with cash/alternative sources to traditional loans. Loan interest on land is way higher than loans on the capital improvements on said land. Plus the land is used as collateral in the loan to make it a less risky venture. Even after this, it is typically expected that some of the capital improvement money comes from the developer as downpayment to the loan. So, without knowing your scenario at all, a good rule of thumb is, if you can't buy the land outright, you don't have enough money to build on it yet.
You think the recent mudslides and fatalities in the LA area might be a cautionary tale? Removing vegetation to clear a steep lot might be as destabilizing to the slope as a wildfire. And if your mudslide impacts a neighbor below you, you get to get sued by him as well.
i can buy the land outright with changes to my savings plan.
but now (from interwebz comments) i'm getting the feeling that buying the land and only having 300K in cash to work with might be really difficult to get what i want. i guess i'll poke around some more to see how far i am away!
For actual Los Angeles BHO / Hillside lots, assume $500psf for hard cost (construction) only. Soft costs on top, and impossible to be any more specific w/o knowing program / finish expectations / site constraints (which could double that hard cost figure right off the bat).
As Non said above - if the land is vacant in LA, there's usually a reason. Working on a couple Hillside projects right now. Inevitably spend about x2 as many permitting-related hours dealing w/ LADBS/BoE...
Feb 23, 18 4:51 pm ·
·
mouseandcat
ok, great thanks for the figures, i really appreciate it.
i guess i wont know a starting point till i actually get together with engineers, architect. and of course that'll just be the starting point as far as costs go. i wonder how many times a project goes and the costs go down.........ha!
Feb 23, 18 5:10 pm ·
·
greenlander1
appleseed how of that cost are you spending on foundation/ shoring/ infra vs vertical construction?
Feb 24, 18 2:13 pm ·
·
Appleseed
We find foundation alone can eat up 1/3 (of a fairly conservative design) of the hard cost. That's without gratuitous number of piles, cantilevers, etc.
Shoring is it's own beast and totally dependent on site, design, and how the BoE is feeling that day ;) If at all possible, limit the excavation to something that can be (on paper) demonstrable as 2:1 - eliminate temp./perm. shoring requirements wherever possible.
Feb 24, 18 2:42 pm ·
·
Appleseed
We find foundation alone can eat up 1/3 (of a fairly conservative design) of the hard cost. That's without gratuitous number of piles, cantilevers, etc.
Shoring is it's own beast and totally dependent on site, design, and how the BoE is feeling that day ;) If at all possible, limit the excavation to something that can be (on paper) demonstrable as 2:1 - eliminate temp./perm. shoring requirements wherever possible.
Buddy of mine did one for 1k sf house in on roughly 25 degree slope and spent 150k just shoring up the lot which was a bit larger than average SFD lot. He had to put in a lot of retaining walls. He recycled the tear down house foundation so no extra money there. And about 200/sf vertical costs.
The number you should be targeting is the price where you can go vertical. Really depends on yr product, soil, slope. Thats yr real lot price.
Agree w everyone else about things taking much longer from plan check to construction.
Ask around talk w lots of contractors, engineers and get a range of numbers. If you find someone good pls let me know as Ive been looking for a good contractor in this field too
Im guessing the soils condition plus slope and general liquidity of the lots market will drive the leverage a bank would be willing to offer, your personal balance sheet aside.
Maybe ask around to some construction oriented regional banks familiar w this space
we moved from ny this past year and still bank with big banks, wondering if anyone has experience with a regional bank or a credit union in the LA area? i can just start cold-calling and ask if they even have construction loan products.
If I own a pice of hillside land and want to wait to build a permanent dwelling what are the laws around building a deck so we can at least enjoy the view? Are cantilevered decks similarly complicated and expensive as a house? I would assume its not as the deck would weigh much less. Thanks for a response, new to the forum and this read has been very interesting.
^ In LA? 'hillside land' isn't nec. the same as something zoned Hillside, but the short answer is; you're likely going to find it to be cost-prohibitive, especially for a stop-gap measure. Planning / BoE don't give much exception to small structures (even if they'd otherwise be Accessory under a normal development) if an actual Hillside lot. Still encumbered with structural foundation issues / piles (re: 'cantilevered').
Possibly could mitigate some of those costs w/ a more conservative design (hard to know what you're envisioning), but Planning (and various Community / Specific / Overlay plans) will also weigh in heavily on the wildland interface issues.
Of course, this all assumes you're doing Permitted work...
$300,000 for a 2000sf new contemporary home on a hillside in Southern California is not even close to what you will pay per sf. Figure a minimum of $300 per square foot and up - likely closer to $400.
The process you're going through right now has always been something that I wished I could experience. Any chance I could pay you to be a fly on the wall during your whole project? xD
Does anyone know the current approximate per sq/ft cost to construct on a hillside in Topanga Canyon? All utilities are at the lot. Septic passed. The slope is moderate to steep. I am also looking for a recommendation for an architect and contractor that have experience in hillside construction. Thank you!
update: nope, i didn't go through with the particular gargantuan task of actually consulting with engineers on a few plots of land i was initially looking at (and still eyeing).
i am not owed any help but no reasonable person is coming on to archinect to ask for complete plans to build a home. i dont think me (or anyone else participating) was looking for someone to draw up plans and post them as a few jpegs and take them to be built as-is. perhaps the premise of my question is flawed; or the way i posed a poorly worded question; maybe i asked the wrong community.
i participate/lurk in forums/subreddits of different subjects/industries. i'm a casual follower of homebuilding communities. i asked a question that i couldn't find in my online search. it could be because its a dumb question. but it's not satisfying to have someone answer a question with blanket statements about it being impossible and no pointed criticism.
is building a home on graded plots expensive? i know it is. what makes it expensive? what about the foundation? what kind of complicated foundation system? are there best practices/techniques people use for slightly graded lots? i don't know any methods or techniques aside from other forums/blogs, which generally don't include graded lots.
in any case, it is going to be expensive and likely cost prohibitively expensive. i am directly money towards something else so this will just be a dream of mine. for now.
I'm doing a 4000sf house for someone on a flat previously developed lot in san diego. The financial burden to the owner vs building the same thing in another state is significant. Our professional fees are about double expected and growing. Unexpected costs like private development of ROW or dedication of private property to the jurisdiction have a way of throwing off the cost expectations of an otherwise simple home.
Between the bureaucracy and the regulatory requirements, there are a lot of hoops to jump through that just get you the ability to build. A design process thru permits that otherwise should have been done in 8mos is now going on 2yrs. (We like to think we are pretty thorough & we have had jurisdictional surprises that are somewhat obnoxious.)
I think you will have to think the foundation and the building itself to be separate when it comes to deal with hillside projects. To put a guesstimate...depends on difficulties of your hill. It can cost 40-50% or higher of your building cost.
So if it cost you to build a $1mm house, try adding $400-500k to be safe. Again, it can go even higher
30 caissons 55’ deep, gradebeams, steamwalls, retaining walls, geogrid walls,fire truck turnaround almost finished 7 years later $500 per sqft with no GC. Not for the faint hearted but it can be done.
Feb 14, 20 1:27 am ·
·
OddArchitect
How did you get the city to agree to a building permit without a GC, and engineered drawings?
Owner builder can pull permits except for grading must be pulled by a class A licensed grading contractor. Of course there where soils reports, civil, geo, Structrual drawings approved by L.A. county. That process took 4 years.
Mouseandcat, I don't know if you got the answer you were looking for but accept that on this forum 90% of the answers are going to be useless. The reason is that this forum is full of assholes and always has been. Most of the people here don't know what they're talking about because half are 2 weeks out of architecture school if they did graduate yet think they know something, and the other half is a mix of posers, wannabe architects, personality cases, and possibly some architects, a group notorious for their grandiose, fragile as a Faberge egg egos. Admittedly, I'm one myself.
There are a lot of variables in building hillside in LA, and much greater restrictions. Look up 'baseline hillside ordinance' (BHO) and you will find a completely separate set of codes. In addition there are other versions of BHO, usually more restrictive, depending on where you are. For example, the Northeast Hillside Ordinance (NEHO) packs further limits on BHO, usually having to do with height and allowable floor area. In all cases, your floor area is determined by a slope band analysis which to my knowledge only a surveyor can accurately do ($4500 min including topo survey). It can be estimated, but the idea is the steeper the slope, the less you can build. Then there's height, based on lifting the ground plane up a certain height, 30', 28', 26' sometimes, making it difficult to do anything that doesn't step up or down the slope. Forget about those big cantilevered houses on stilts.
My advise is to find a good foundation contractor and bring him out to anything you have your eye on. Assume at least $100k for the foundation on up to millions. A smart design will limit the foundation cost (grade beams & caissons typically) but there may be compromises in the design. The rest is based on the usual cost factors plus something for the difficulties inherent to getting materials up and down, lack of area to stage materials, etc. I'm in design for 2 houses in LA now and it's not easy.
Apr 28, 20 4:45 pm ·
·
Non Sequitur
And you're digging up this 2+ year old question because? Op got excellent answers here for the money they paid. You're the asshole for giving it up for free.
Hi Shane909 -- new to this forum, but was wonerdering if i could PM you with some similar questions about building on a hillside, i am in San Diego and already own the hillside lot. I know this thread is a bit older, but please let me know. Thanks!
Dec 17, 23 1:15 pm ·
·
Non Sequitur
What did the professionals you hired tell you about your hill site?
Assuming they contacted professionals in the first place. ONCE AND FOR ALL, stop asking and professional to professional services without a contract and compensation. It is unprofessional conduct to provide professional advice about actual projects (like cases, in the case of lawyers) without first entering into a contractual agreement and receiving compensation for services rendered. Professional advice attached PROFESSIONAL LIABILITY.
If you aren't going to pay for professional services then go FUCK OFF!!!!
If you can't afford to pay for professional services then you can't afford your project so FULL STOP and GIVE UP on your project until the time you have the money to pay for the professional services AND the project costs. Right now, my advice for you is to SELL THE LOT.
You don't have any clue about how to go about professional services let alone any project for that matter, especially one about the designing of hillside homes or other buildings on the hillside.
Short answer, it WILL cost significantly more than building on some flat ground because the foundation costs will cost more to have it specially engineered to the site and not go falling off the hill in a mudslide in a future near you.
What the fuck gives you the idea we are a fucking charity?
First, justinlw26, as a non-design professional, the first thing you should be asking for is a list of design professionals with experience in hillside design that has done work in designing hillside homes/structures in the southern California region. As prospective clients, you should be expecting to PAY for professional services. It is unprofessional for professionals to give away billable professional services and time spent on professional advice about a specific project. We're not going to teach you how to be a design professional and how to design. Numerous assholes keep coming here to get professional services for nothing. They do it to skip out on paying a real professional because they want to not spend the $30,000+ on professional services. Don't you see how that gall that people have? They are planning to invest half a million dollars or more to have a home designed and built. A home today will cost half a million dollars for just a modest 1 story home like the 1950s era California ranch style house of a typical 2000-3000 square feet living space, to be built. Seriously, a $500,000+ project and they aren't willing to spend $50,000 for professional services? Little advice, a project you are talking about on a hillside, will likely cost $750,000 to $1 Million for a 2000-3000 sq.ft. hillside home, to build it.
Professional services will involve a structural engineer in addition to the architect/building designer. It can cost significantly more than $1 Million. Those fancy homes on the hillsides on the northwest, north, and northeast sides of the Los Angeles area, a lot of them cost WELL over $1 Million. They cost over a $1 Million back in the 1960s-1970s. Easily multiple times that, today, with inflation taken into account. You didn't come asking to hire a professional. You came up with some shenanigan trick to try to sidestep the services of real professionals. You require specialized services. This isn't going to be provided by professionals for free. No if, and, or but about it.... especially with regards to a custom home.
We didn't go to college and professional experience just to work for free. F--- that, man. who would? A whore at least has self-respect to charge for their services. You treat us like sluts. Like we are going to give away our services which we can get paid for.
The only questions you should be asking are who are professionals in the area who would be recommended. Like a list of recommended professionals with professional experience in hillside design in that area and familiarity with the regulatory processes and maybe advice on questions to ask. You try to see what professional advice you can get without paying for it. This just indicates you don't have the money for it. If you don't even have $750,000 or more secured, or even $500,000 at a bare minimum, you just don't have the money to have a custom home designed and built.
Hillsides in those areas are almost always, outright custom. They require custom foundations to secure the home into the hillsides. They aren't typical slab-on-grade ranch-style homes, in most cases unless you have a large enough leveled-out area where the geological soil conditions are uniform throughout the area where the home would be proposed to be located on the site. Where sections of the ground underneath are going one direction, and another section in a different direction, then you have complicated issues. Usually, these differential soil conditions are fairly shallow but they can be deep. Sometimes, you need to secure deep into the hillside into stable bedrock layers that can be deep. Imagine 2-3 story tall piles and tiebacks that can be as long as a power pole is tall. In some cases, as much as 1/4 of a football field. All this to support securely your 1-3 story home. Now, this can be significant. This can't be assessed professionally from across the internet.
This requires geotechnical expertise as well. If you plan a hillside home without remotely a stable soil bedrock layer, I would not recommend attempting such unless you have $1 Million or more, secured and available. Think $500-$1,000 per square foot of money being secured. This doesn't mean the project is going to cost that much but this is what you should have available with significant contingency factored in. It will likely cost closer to the $500/sq.ft. range. It can cost more than that but that's a starting point zone.
Where I am, the cost isn't necessarily up to that level but can be. Depends on the particular site. We have basaltic bedrock layers in many locations so that can reduce some of the cost of the foundation system. I deal with hillside designs up in the Pacific Northwest area (Oregon/Washington).
construction: sloped / hillside land in Los Angeles
hi all! long time lurker! i have questions about building a home on a los angeles hillside. the price of undeveloped lots are really attractive to me.
been reading (but haven't spoken to anyone yet) about building a contemporary / modern 3 bedroom home (~2000 sqft?) and also about building on graded land.
i'm wondering what the costs are at each step? i think i understand the high-level steps but am completely ignorant of a few major questions:
(1) the costs and the specifics for financing the land purchase
(2) estimated time for when I will be able to move in once we purchase the land.
or perhaps the better question is whether this is even possible for me given the cash constraints (lets say I have 300K in cash for this entire thing).
any input or referrals is greatly appreciated!
steps
- inspection: soils, utilities,
- purchase land (30% down?)
- architect (10% of total costs?)
- expediter
- permitting
- foundation / structural component
- construction
If you have to ask, you can't afford it.
Generally, from homes to large scale developments, people buy land with cash/alternative sources to traditional loans. Loan interest on land is way higher than loans on the capital improvements on said land. Plus the land is used as collateral in the loan to make it a less risky venture. Even after this, it is typically expected that some of the capital improvement money comes from the developer as downpayment to the loan. So, without knowing your scenario at all, a good rule of thumb is, if you can't buy the land outright, you don't have enough money to build on it yet.
You think the recent mudslides and fatalities in the LA area might be a cautionary tale? Removing vegetation to clear a steep lot might be as destabilizing to the slope as a wildfire. And if your mudslide impacts a neighbor below you, you get to get sued by him as well.
i can buy the land outright with changes to my savings plan.
but now (from interwebz comments) i'm getting the feeling that buying the land and only having 300K in cash to work with might be really difficult to get what i want. i guess i'll poke around some more to see how far i am away!
thanks for the general feedback.
For actual Los Angeles BHO / Hillside lots, assume $500psf for hard cost (construction) only. Soft costs on top, and impossible to be any more specific w/o knowing program / finish expectations / site constraints (which could double that hard cost figure right off the bat).
As Non said above - if the land is vacant in LA, there's usually a reason. Working on a couple Hillside projects right now. Inevitably spend about x2 as many permitting-related hours dealing w/ LADBS/BoE...
ok, great thanks for the figures, i really appreciate it. i guess i wont know a starting point till i actually get together with engineers, architect. and of course that'll just be the starting point as far as costs go. i wonder how many times a project goes and the costs go down.........ha!
appleseed how of that cost are you spending on foundation/ shoring/ infra vs vertical construction?
We find foundation alone can eat up 1/3 (of a fairly conservative design) of the hard cost. That's without gratuitous number of piles, cantilevers, etc. Shoring is it's own beast and totally dependent on site, design, and how the BoE is feeling that day ;) If at all possible, limit the excavation to something that can be (on paper) demonstrable as 2:1 - eliminate temp./perm. shoring requirements wherever possible.
We find foundation alone can eat up 1/3 (of a fairly conservative design) of the hard cost. That's without gratuitous number of piles, cantilevers, etc. Shoring is it's own beast and totally dependent on site, design, and how the BoE is feeling that day ;) If at all possible, limit the excavation to something that can be (on paper) demonstrable as 2:1 - eliminate temp./perm. shoring requirements wherever possible.
Buddy of mine did one for 1k sf house in on roughly 25 degree slope and spent 150k just shoring up the lot which was a bit larger than average SFD lot. He had to put in a lot of retaining walls. He recycled the tear down house foundation so no extra money there. And about 200/sf vertical costs.
The number you should be targeting is the price where you can go vertical. Really depends on yr product, soil, slope. Thats yr real lot price.
Agree w everyone else about things taking much longer from plan check to construction.
Ask around talk w lots of contractors, engineers and get a range of numbers. If you find someone good pls let me know as Ive been looking for a good contractor in this field too
i will pass you my notes!
can you pass your notes to me too please
Im guessing the soils condition plus slope and general liquidity of the lots market will drive the leverage a bank would be willing to offer, your personal balance sheet aside.
Maybe ask around to some construction oriented regional banks familiar w this space
thanks for the guidance!
we moved from ny this past year and still bank with big banks, wondering if anyone has experience with a regional bank or a credit union in the LA area? i can just start cold-calling and ask if they even have construction loan products.
If I own a pice of hillside land and want to wait to build a permanent dwelling what are the laws around building a deck so we can at least enjoy the view? Are cantilevered decks similarly complicated and expensive as a house? I would assume its not as the deck would weigh much less. Thanks for a response, new to the forum and this read has been very interesting.
Piece of hillside land not pice!
^ In LA? 'hillside land' isn't nec. the same as something zoned Hillside, but the short answer is; you're likely going to find it to be cost-prohibitive, especially for a stop-gap measure. Planning / BoE don't give much exception to small structures (even if they'd otherwise be Accessory under a normal development) if an actual Hillside lot. Still encumbered with structural foundation issues / piles (re: 'cantilevered').
Possibly could mitigate some of those costs w/ a more conservative design (hard to know what you're envisioning), but Planning (and various Community / Specific / Overlay plans) will also weigh in heavily on the wildland interface issues.
Of course, this all assumes you're doing Permitted work...
$300,000 for a 2000sf new contemporary home on a hillside in Southern California is not even close to what you will pay per sf. Figure a minimum of $300 per square foot and up - likely closer to $400.
ArchQuestion, would you handle a project like this.. ?
Any contractor recommendations in the LA area. So many to choose from and we always like to go off of referrals.
i'm no where near far enough along the process to refer anyone. but seems like there's a ton of geographic knowledge here..!
The process you're going through right now has always been something that I wished I could experience. Any chance I could pay you to be a fly on the wall during your whole project? xD
Does anyone know the current approximate per sq/ft cost to construct on a hillside in Topanga Canyon? All utilities are at the lot. Septic passed. The slope is moderate to steep. I am also looking for a recommendation for an architect and contractor that have experience in hillside construction. Thank you!
Currently building in the hillside with my construction team, can share any knowledge if needed
What does your architect have to say about it?
My architect specialize on it lol. Its a long process but we have done few already
hello.. can you shoot me an email please.. leagerodiaz@yahoo.com
robertchuang
Can I contact you for an opinion on hillside construction?Thank you!
Unfortunately, as a licensed Architect in California, I cannot advise you without a contract.
No, this isn't possible given your cash constraints.
update: nope, i didn't go through with the particular gargantuan task of actually consulting with engineers on a few plots of land i was initially looking at (and still eyeing).
i am not owed any help but no reasonable person is coming on to archinect to ask for complete plans to build a home. i dont think me (or anyone else participating) was looking for someone to draw up plans and post them as a few jpegs and take them to be built as-is. perhaps the premise of my question is flawed; or the way i posed a poorly worded question; maybe i asked the wrong community.
i participate/lurk in forums/subreddits of different subjects/industries. i'm a casual follower of homebuilding communities. i asked a question that i couldn't find in my online search. it could be because its a dumb question. but it's not satisfying to have someone answer a question with blanket statements about it being impossible and no pointed criticism.
is building a home on graded plots expensive? i know it is. what makes it expensive? what about the foundation? what kind of complicated foundation system? are there best practices/techniques people use for slightly graded lots? i don't know any methods or techniques aside from other forums/blogs, which generally don't include graded lots.
in any case, it is going to be expensive and likely cost prohibitively expensive. i am directly money towards something else so this will just be a dream of mine. for now.
I'm doing a 4000sf house for someone on a flat previously developed lot in san diego. The financial burden to the owner vs building the same thing in another state is significant. Our professional fees are about double expected and growing. Unexpected costs like private development of ROW or dedication of private property to the jurisdiction have a way of throwing off the cost expectations of an otherwise simple home.
Between the bureaucracy and the regulatory requirements, there are a lot of hoops to jump through that just get you the ability to build. A design process thru permits that otherwise should have been done in 8mos is now going on 2yrs. (We like to think we are pretty thorough & we have had jurisdictional surprises that are somewhat obnoxious.)
The actual arch/struct design is the easy part.
yup, that's seems to be the case.
by the way, my response above was meant to respond to a set of comments that now seemed to be deleted?
I think you will have to think the foundation and the building itself to be separate when it comes to deal with hillside projects. To put a guesstimate...depends on difficulties of your hill. It can cost 40-50% or higher of your building cost.
So if it cost you to build a $1mm house, try adding $400-500k to be safe. Again, it can go even higher
30 caissons 55’ deep, gradebeams, steamwalls, retaining walls, geogrid walls,fire truck turnaround almost finished 7 years later $500 per sqft with no GC. Not for the faint hearted but it can be done.
How did you get the city to agree to a building permit without a GC, and engineered drawings?
Owner builder can pull permits except for grading must be pulled by a class A licensed grading contractor. Of course there where soils reports, civil, geo, Structrual drawings approved by L.A. county. That process took 4 years.
wrong page
Mouseandcat, I don't know if you got the answer you were looking for but accept that on this forum 90% of the answers are going to be useless. The reason is that this forum is full of assholes and always has been. Most of the people here don't know what they're talking about because half are 2 weeks out of architecture school if they did graduate yet think they know something, and the other half is a mix of posers, wannabe architects, personality cases, and possibly some architects, a group notorious for their grandiose, fragile as a Faberge egg egos. Admittedly, I'm one myself.
There are a lot of variables in building hillside in LA, and much greater restrictions. Look up 'baseline hillside ordinance' (BHO) and you will find a completely separate set of codes. In addition there are other versions of BHO, usually more restrictive, depending on where you are. For example, the Northeast Hillside Ordinance (NEHO) packs further limits on BHO, usually having to do with height and allowable floor area. In all cases, your floor area is determined by a slope band analysis which to my knowledge only a surveyor can accurately do ($4500 min including topo survey). It can be estimated, but the idea is the steeper the slope, the less you can build. Then there's height, based on lifting the ground plane up a certain height, 30', 28', 26' sometimes, making it difficult to do anything that doesn't step up or down the slope. Forget about those big cantilevered houses on stilts.
My advise is to find a good foundation contractor and bring him out to anything you have your eye on. Assume at least $100k for the foundation on up to millions. A smart design will limit the foundation cost (grade beams & caissons typically) but there may be compromises in the design. The rest is based on the usual cost factors plus something for the difficulties inherent to getting materials up and down, lack of area to stage materials, etc. I'm in design for 2 houses in LA now and it's not easy.
And you're digging up this 2+ year old question because? Op got excellent answers here for the money they paid. You're the asshole for giving it up for free.
If that's all you have to sell you don't know shit.
No worries, I have plenty to sell but I value my experience more to just give it away free of snark.
Hi Shane909 -- new to this forum, but was wonerdering if i could PM you with some similar questions about building on a hillside, i am in San Diego and already own the hillside lot. I know this thread is a bit older, but please let me know. Thanks!
What did the professionals you hired tell you about your hill site?
Assuming they contacted professionals in the first place. ONCE AND FOR ALL, stop asking and professional to professional services without a contract and compensation. It is unprofessional conduct to provide professional advice about actual projects (like cases, in the case of lawyers) without first entering into a contractual agreement and receiving compensation for services rendered. Professional advice attached PROFESSIONAL LIABILITY.
If you aren't going to pay for professional services then go FUCK OFF!!!!
If you can't afford to pay for professional services then you can't afford your project so FULL STOP and GIVE UP on your project until the time you have the money to pay for the professional services AND the project costs. Right now, my advice for you is to SELL THE LOT.
You don't have any clue about how to go about professional services let alone any project for that matter, especially one about the designing of hillside homes or other buildings on the hillside.
Short answer, it WILL cost significantly more than building on some flat ground because the foundation costs will cost more to have it specially engineered to the site and not go falling off the hill in a mudslide in a future near you.
What the fuck gives you the idea we are a fucking charity?
First, justinlw26, as a non-design professional, the first thing you should be asking for is a list of design professionals with experience in hillside design that has done work in designing hillside homes/structures in the southern California region. As prospective clients, you should be expecting to PAY for professional services. It is unprofessional for professionals to give away billable professional services and time spent on professional advice about a specific project. We're not going to teach you how to be a design professional and how to design. Numerous assholes keep coming here to get professional services for nothing. They do it to skip out on paying a real professional because they want to not spend the $30,000+ on professional services. Don't you see how that gall that people have? They are planning to invest half a million dollars or more to have a home designed and built. A home today will cost half a million dollars for just a modest 1 story home like the 1950s era California ranch style house of a typical 2000-3000 square feet living space, to be built. Seriously, a $500,000+ project and they aren't willing to spend $50,000 for professional services? Little advice, a project you are talking about on a hillside, will likely cost $750,000 to $1 Million for a 2000-3000 sq.ft. hillside home, to build it.
Professional services will involve a structural engineer in addition to the architect/building designer. It can cost significantly more than $1 Million. Those fancy homes on the hillsides on the northwest, north, and northeast sides of the Los Angeles area, a lot of them cost WELL over $1 Million. They cost over a $1 Million back in the 1960s-1970s. Easily multiple times that, today, with inflation taken into account. You didn't come asking to hire a professional. You came up with some shenanigan trick to try to sidestep the services of real professionals. You require specialized services. This isn't going to be provided by professionals for free. No if, and, or but about it.... especially with regards to a custom home.
We didn't go to college and professional experience just to work for free. F--- that, man. who would? A whore at least has self-respect to charge for their services. You treat us like sluts. Like we are going to give away our services which we can get paid for.
The only questions you should be asking are who are professionals in the area who would be recommended. Like a list of recommended professionals with professional experience in hillside design in that area and familiarity with the regulatory processes and maybe advice on questions to ask. You try to see what professional advice you can get without paying for it. This just indicates you don't have the money for it. If you don't even have $750,000 or more secured, or even $500,000 at a bare minimum, you just don't have the money to have a custom home designed and built.
Hillsides in those areas are almost always, outright custom. They require custom foundations to secure the home into the hillsides. They aren't typical slab-on-grade ranch-style homes, in most cases unless you have a large enough leveled-out area where the geological soil conditions are uniform throughout the area where the home would be proposed to be located on the site. Where sections of the ground underneath are going one direction, and another section in a different direction, then you have complicated issues. Usually, these differential soil conditions are fairly shallow but they can be deep. Sometimes, you need to secure deep into the hillside into stable bedrock layers that can be deep. Imagine 2-3 story tall piles and tiebacks that can be as long as a power pole is tall. In some cases, as much as 1/4 of a football field. All this to support securely your 1-3 story home. Now, this can be significant. This can't be assessed professionally from across the internet.
This requires geotechnical expertise as well. If you plan a hillside home without remotely a stable soil bedrock layer, I would not recommend attempting such unless you have $1 Million or more, secured and available. Think $500-$1,000 per square foot of money being secured. This doesn't mean the project is going to cost that much but this is what you should have available with significant contingency factored in. It will likely cost closer to the $500/sq.ft. range. It can cost more than that but that's a starting point zone.
Where I am, the cost isn't necessarily up to that level but can be. Depends on the particular site. We have basaltic bedrock layers in many locations so that can reduce some of the cost of the foundation system. I deal with hillside designs up in the Pacific Northwest area (Oregon/Washington).
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