Excavation in Santa Monica
Santa Monica sits on a mostly flat slope angling down toward the ocean, with high bluffs above the beach on its north side. The city treats the Santa Monica Fault as active, and the state’s 2018 Alquist-Priolo maps put roughly a tenth of it in an Earthquake Fault Zone.
Santa Monica’s Building and Safety Division normally requires a geotechnical report for new buildings and for additions over 750 square feet. On a lot inside the state’s Earthquake Fault Zone, the report and any fault study the city asks for come before the design is final, not after. We treat the report as the source for dig depth, slope ratios and shoring, and plan the footing and basement excavation from it.
California’s building code requires 10 days’ written notice to an adjoining owner when an excavation will go deeper than their foundation and deeper than its distance from the property line. Santa Monica enforces that at the counter: its information bulletin on the notice says the permit will not be issued without proof it was given. Where a basement or deep footing will sit close to a side yard line, that notice is part of the permit package from the start.
The city also issues Early Start permits limited to excavation and shoring only. Where a project qualifies, the dig and its shoring can be permitted ahead of the rest of the building, which changes the order of work: demolition and haul-off of the old structure, then shoring and excavation, with the structure above following once its plans clear.
Most of the city is a gentle slope toward Ocean Avenue, but the north edge ends in high bluffs above the beach and drops into Santa Monica Canyon. A small area is also in a separate state fault zone for the Potrero Canyon Fault, mapped on the Topanga quadrangle. Lots along that edge call for more attention to slope and drainage than the flat blocks inland.
South along Lincoln Boulevard is Venice and Mar Vista, and Culver City lies a few miles southeast.
Excavation and grading across the Los Angeles area:
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