Excavation in Glendale
Glendale is a separate city lying mostly in the Verdugo Mountains region, and its municipal code has its own chapter on grading in hillside areas and excavation blasting. State maps put roughly a fifth of the city in earthquake-induced landslide zones.
Everything here goes through the city’s own Building and Safety staff and the GlendalePermits portal, where a Grading Permit and a Grading Plan are listed as separate permit types. Knowing early whether a job needs a grading plan as well as a permit shapes what gets drawn and by whom. LA’s hillside ordinance, haul-route hearings and grading thresholds do not apply inside city limits, so we set those assumptions aside and work from Glendale’s code and bulletins.
Most of Glendale sits in the Verdugo Mountains region, with the San Rafael Hills also inside its limits and only a small portion reaching into the San Fernando Valley. The state’s earthquake-induced landslide zones cover roughly a fifth of the city, far more than its liquefaction zones do. On a canyon lot above Glenoaks Boulevard or in the foothill neighborhoods toward the Crescenta Valley, that means slope stability, rather than groundwater, is often the soils engineer’s first question. Answering it well often decides how much grading and benching on the slope a design can carry and where a retaining wall has to go.
The municipal code puts excavation blasting in the same chapter as hillside grading, Chapter 15.12. Most residential digs in the Verdugo foothills never come near that, but its presence in the code is a reminder that the city anticipates excavation in hard ground. Where test pits or borings show hard material near the surface, we plan equipment and approach around it before the schedule is set, rather than finding out mid-dig.
Along the Los Angeles River side of the city, lots are flatter and access is simpler. That is where ADU pad excavation and utility work for backyard units is most straightforward, though pockets of liquefaction mapping still show up on the low ground.
East of Glendale are Eagle Rock and, over the hills, Pasadena. To the south past Atwater Village lie Silver Lake and Echo Park.
Excavation and grading across the Los Angeles area:
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