Second-story additions:
the real height limits.

The citywide baseline

Under the Baseline Hillside Ordinance, height in hillside areas is capped at 45 feet, measured from average natural grade — already a different, generally stricter measurement method than a flat-lot height limit. That's the number that applies broadly across LA's hillside areas.

Where it gets stricter: specific plan corridors

Properties along Mulholland Drive fall under the Mulholland Scenic Parkway Specific Plan, which caps height at 40 feet — measured from the highest point of the roof to the ground directly below, a tighter number and a different measurement point than the citywide baseline. If your property sits in this corridor, the 45-foot number from the general ordinance simply isn't the one that applies to you.

Design review most homeowners don't expect

Inside the Mulholland corridor, any project adding 900 or more cumulative square feet of floor area since the plan's 1992 adoption triggers design review by the Mulholland Design Review Board — on top of standard plan check. "Cumulative" matters here: it's not just this project's square footage, it's the running total since 1992, which can catch a property that's already had additions over the years.

The viewshed protection specifically

The plan also protects a defined viewshed — a visual corridor calculated from a 7-degree angle measured from a sightline 4 feet above the edge of Mulholland Drive. A second-story addition that's otherwise code-compliant can still face design revisions if it intrudes on this protected sightline.

What this means for your project

The real height limit for your project depends on exactly which overlay your specific address falls under, not a single citywide rule you can assume from a general hillside guide. We pull your property's actual overlay designation before design work starts, so the height target, the design review requirement, and the viewshed constraint are all known upfront — not discovered after drawings are already done.