General contractor in Valencia, CA

In 91355 the median home was built in 1984, the 1980s are the largest building decade, and about 36 percent of homes predate 1980. Roughly half the homes are detached houses, and most of the rest are attached homes and apartments. That is where original bathrooms, forty year old supply lines and first generation kitchens tend to show up. Source: US Census Bureau, ACS 2024 5-year, table B25034, ZCTA 91355

In 91354 the median home was built in 2000, and nearly half of all homes went up in 2000 or later. Fewer than two percent date from the 1950s or 1960s. Tesoro del Valle, which joined the City in November 2022, carries this ZIP too. Newer houses here rarely need rescuing. They need space, so a garage conversion in Valencia or an added bedroom is the more common conversation, and the frame they start from is usually in good shape. Source: US Census Bureau, ACS 2024 5-year, table B25034, ZCTA 91354

Valencia Boulevard carries both building departments that serve this valley. The City Permit Center is at 23920 Valencia Boulevard, Suite 140, and it handles every address inside city limits, Valencia included. The County's Santa Clarita Valley Building and Safety office sits on the same boulevard and handles unincorporated land, including septic and sewer connection permits.

For a Valencia homeowner the City counter is the one that matters, but the neighbor across the line in Stevenson Ranch goes to the County. Plans drawn to one department's checklist and submitted to the other lose time, and every correction cycle adds more of it. We check the parcel before a single sheet is drawn, so the set matches the reviewer who will actually read it.

Bring whatever you have from past work: an old permit card, the association's approval letter, a set of plans from the builder. Each one shortens the research, and none of it is required to start the conversation.

Source: City of Santa Clarita Permit Center, Building and Safety

State seismic hazard maps place parts of central Valencia in a liquefaction zone, drawn on the Newhall quadrangle released in February 1998. Addresses we checked on Valencia Boulevard and Town Center Drive fall inside it, while points on McBean Parkway and Arroyo Park Drive do not. The zone changes block by block, and the same central points sit outside the wildland fire classes on the 2025 state map.

Inside a mapped zone the state requires a site specific soils investigation for most new development, but it exempts a single family frame house of up to two stories that is not part of a larger project. The City's plan check can still ask for one on an addition, so that answer comes from the reviewer for your address. We ask it early, because a soils report changes a foundation design and its price.

You can look up your own address on the state's earthquake hazard map, the California Geological Survey's EQ Zapp viewer, before we visit. It shows whether the parcel sits inside a mapped zone.

Sources: California Geological Survey, Seismic Hazard Zones, liquefaction layer, Newhall quadrangle 1998. California Geological Survey, Seismic Hazards Mapping Act overview

Where a Valencia street sits under a homeowners association, the association can set reasonable rules on what an addition looks like. What it cannot do is prohibit or unreasonably restrict an accessory dwelling unit on a lot zoned single family. That state rule took effect on January 1, 2020, and it is worth knowing before an architectural review meeting, not after one.

Most Valencia projects start in the same few rooms. A kitchen remodel in Valencia is the most common, followed by bathrooms and the garage. We walk the house, read the association rules that apply to it, check the parcel, and put the whole scope and a fixed price in writing before any work begins. You keep one point of contact from that first walk to the final walkthrough. Source: California Civil Code section 4751, effective January 1, 2020