Grading Permits: Cut and Fill in Austin and Los Angeles

Moving soil on a lot, cutting it away or filling it in, is grading, and each city draws its own line. Los Angeles requires a grading permit from its Department of Building and Safety to grade a yard or to bring soil onto or haul it off a site, with exceptions. Small jobs are among them: a cut less than 2 feet deep, or one that leaves no cut slope over 5 feet high and steeper than 1 vertical in 2 horizontal, or a fill less than 1 foot deep on natural ground flatter than 1 in 10, each only up to 50 cubic yards and only if the lot’s drainage is unchanged. Digging for a foundation or pool under a building permit, outside hillside areas, is also excepted. Austin’s environment code limits cut and fill on a tract to 4 feet of depth, with exceptions that include the city’s urban watersheds and the digging for a building’s foundation or a swimming pool; this guide has not found a separate Austin grading permit, so ask Development Services what permit covers the work.

Los Angeles: when grading needs a permit

No one may grade, or bring earth onto or take it off a site, without a grading permit from the Department of Building and Safety, and in hillside areas a copy of the permit has to be at the site. The code’s other provisions still apply, but no permit is needed for an excavation less than 2 feet deep, or one that does not create a cut slope more than 5 feet high and steeper than 1 vertical in 2 horizontal, unless the cut exceeds 50 cubic yards or changes the existing drainage; for a fill less than 1 foot deep on natural terrain flatter than 1 in 10, unless it exceeds 50 cubic yards or changes the drainage; for excavations outside hillside areas for basements, footings, piles, swimming pools or underground structures a valid building permit authorizes; or for excavations for wells, tunnels or utilities that do not provide vertical or lateral support for buildings or harm the safety or stability of private or public property. Grading of more than 100 cubic yards with an excavation deeper than 5 feet has to be done by a California-licensed contractor. The retaining wall permit brief covers the walls that often come with a cut.

Austin: the 4-foot limit on cut and fill

Austin’s environment code, in its requirements for all watersheds, says cuts on a tract may not exceed 4 feet of depth, and fill may not exceed 4 feet, and that a fill area must be restored and stabilized. The exceptions include the urban watersheds (among them Boggy, Blunn, Johnson, Little Walnut, Shoal, Waller and the East and West Bouldin creek watersheds, and parts of the Colorado River watershed), a roadway right-of-way, cut for a building foundation or a swimming pool, fill under a foundation with sides perpendicular to the ground or under pier and beam construction, utility work and wastewater drain fields (a cut for them must be restored to natural grade), and a driveway needed for primary access, up to 8 feet under conditions that include no other feasible location. A site plan is not required for building or altering four or fewer homes on a legal lot with four or fewer units outside the 100-year floodplain, or inside it where the effect on the waterway is insignificant (ask Development Services), but the exemption does not waive a building permit. The code read for this guide does not say whether grading alone needs a site plan, so ask Development Services. Austin Energy’s criteria also say final grades in its easements should not be changed without its written approval, and the drainage code bars placing an obstruction in a waterway, which includes the 100-year and 25-year floodplains, unless an approved development application authorizes it; the easements guide covers both.

Before any digging, call 811; the before-you-dig guide explains how. Elsewhere, ask the city or county building department whether grading on your lot needs a permit.