Excavation in Studio City
Studio City is named for the studio lot Mack Sennett began building in 1927, and both the Los Angeles River and the Tujunga Wash run through it. Much of the flat ground is in state-mapped liquefaction zones, and the slopes toward Mulholland Drive are City-designated Hillside Area.
South of Ventura Boulevard, Fryman and Coldwater canyons climb into the Santa Monica Mountains, and a new house or a large pad on one of those lots can reach the soil volumes that trigger the City’s haul-route process. The applicant submits a proposed route. Public Works and LADOT review it, owners within 300 feet receive notice of a public hearing, and the Board of Building and Safety Commissioners grants, conditions or denies it. A Board decision can be appealed to the City Council. Every one of those steps sits ahead of the grading permit, so export volume is worth settling early, before the house design is fixed.
In March 2023 the City added a Hillside Construction Regulation district covering Franklin Canyon, Coldwater Canyon and Bowmont Hazen. Studio City lots toward Coldwater Canyon Avenue should be checked in ZIMAS for that designation, because it brings limits on work hours, hauling hours and by-right grading. Lots within half a mile of Mulholland Drive also fall under the Mulholland Scenic Parkway Specific Plan, whose area takes in part of the Sherman Oaks–Studio City–Toluca Lake–Cahuenga Pass Community Plan area.
North of Ventura, the Los Angeles River and the Tujunga Wash both cross the neighborhood, and around half of Studio City is mapped by the state as a liquefaction zone. Around the former Mack Sennett lot, now Radford Studio Center, the streets are flat and the lots are easy to reach, and the soils engineer’s groundwater notes become the main design input. For foundation excavation on the flats, those notes decide how deep footings go and whether the sides need support. On a canyon lot with an existing house, the order is usually demolition and debris haul-off followed by grading the slope in stages.
Studio City sits between Sherman Oaks to the west and North Hollywood to the north, with the Hollywood Hills over the ridge via Laurel Canyon.
Excavation and grading across the Los Angeles area:
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