Calabasas bathroom remodel permit: what needs one, who issues it, and what gets inspected

City or county: check the address first

Calabasas runs a Building and Safety Division of its own. Its plan check reviews drawings, its permit center issues permits, and its inspectors check the work in the field (City of Calabasas, Building and Safety).

The mailing address does not settle it, though. Some homes with a Calabasas address sit outside city limits. Monte Nido, for one, is an unincorporated community of Los Angeles County (LA County Public Works), and unincorporated communities get building services from the county's Building and Safety district offices (LA County Building and Safety).

The quickest check is the county's Service Locator. Type the street address and it reports whether the property is incorporated or unincorporated. The county's permit page makes that lookup the first step, and says Public Works issues the permit when the property is unincorporated (LA County building permits). Open the Service Locator.

The rest of this guide follows the city's rules. The county's list of finish work that needs no permit reads much the same, naming painting, papering, tiling, carpeting, cabinets and counter tops (LA County, work exempt from permits), but its forms, portal and fees are its own.

Design rendering

What needs a permit, and what does not

The city's own list is the one that counts. On its permit FAQs, the City of Calabasas puts kitchen and bathroom remodels on the list of projects that need a permit when they involve drywall replacement or changes to the electrical, mechanical or plumbing systems (City of Calabasas FAQs).

The city's Residential Bathroom Checklist is more specific. It defines a bathroom remodel as "the replacement and/or relocation of vanity cabinets, toilets, sinks, tubs, & showers, replacement/changes to lighting, vent fan replacement and removal/replacement of drywall" (City of Calabasas bathroom checklist). In plain terms:

• Needs a permit: moving or replacing a toilet, sink, tub or shower; relocating pipes; new circuits or wiring, including a new or moved outlet; a new vent fan; taking out drywall.
• No permit on its own: paint, tile, flooring, mirrors and towel bars, when nothing else is being done. The checklist calls these maintenance, and the city's exempt list includes painting, papering, tiling and carpeting (Work exempt from permits).
• Repairs: clearing a stoppage or fixing a leak is exempt, as long as it does not replace or rearrange valves, pipes or fixtures. Once a concealed pipe has to be cut out and replaced, it needs a permit (Work exempt from permits).

Turning a tub into a shower

Plan on a permit. Taking out a tub and building a shower replaces a fixture and usually moves the drain and the valve, and the city lists "changing the location or replacement of fixtures" as plumbing work that needs one (City of Calabasas FAQs).

The new shower then has to meet the checklist: at least 1,024 square inches of floor that can hold a 30 inch circle, and a pressure balancing or thermostatic mixing valve (City of Calabasas bathroom checklist). Its floor also gets the water test described under inspections. The shower guide covers the design side.

How the permit is pulled

Calabasas takes permit applications online through its Online Permit Center, where every applicant signs up for an account first (City of Calabasas Online Permit Center). The city does not issue express permits, does not take plans at the public counter, and reviews applications in the order they arrive. Simple jobs can be issued in as little as one day, and the city's own examples include non-structural bathroom remodels that only replace fixtures (City of Calabasas FAQs).

For a non-structural bathroom remodel, the checklist asks for (City of Calabasas bathroom checklist):

• A building permit application, required when drywall or a window is replaced
• The electrical, mechanical and plumbing permit applications, and the Building Project Identification form
• A floor plan of the house, which may be hand drawn and does not have to be to scale
• Existing and proposed layouts of the bathroom, drawn to scale, with a legend

Applications that arrive without those documents are denied and returned. The checklist covers non-structural remodels only, so moving walls or other structural work is a bigger submittal.

Permit fees

There is no flat bathroom fee. The building permit fee is set from the job's valuation, figured with the county's building valuation guide, and plan check adds 85 percent of that building permit fee. Plumbing, electrical and mechanical work is priced by the item, for example $26 per plumbing fixture and $23 per fan, and a 3 percent technology fee and a 5 percent general plan maintenance fee go on top (City of Calabasas fee schedule, 2026 to 2027). A good estimate shows the permit as its own line.

Who pulls it

Usually the licensed contractor. The city also lets a homeowner pull permits as an owner-builder, but only the owner of the property qualifies, the city describes strict limits, and it will not issue the permit until its Property Owner's Disclosure is read, initialed, signed and returned (City of Calabasas FAQs), (Property Owner's Disclosure).

When work can happen

Construction in Calabasas runs from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., except Saturdays, when it runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and not at all on Sundays or federal holidays (Calabasas Municipal Code 17.20.160). The city's hours sheet adds that a homeowners association may be stricter, so in a gated community check with the management company too (Allowable Construction Hours).

What gets inspected

Inspectors have to see the work before it is covered or concealed (City of Calabasas FAQs). That one rule sets the rhythm of a bathroom remodel: walls stay open until the rough work passes, and the shower stays bare until its water test passes.

Every inspection is booked through the city's online portal; phone and email requests are no longer taken, and requests close at 3 p.m. the business day before (City of Calabasas inspection requests). For inspections inside the house an adult over 18 has to be home, and the permit card and approved plans stay on site (City of Calabasas FAQs). The city's inspection sequence includes these stages:

1. Combination roughAll rough plumbing, mechanical and electrical work complete, with the walls still open.
2. InsulationWhen the job has walls or ceilings that take insulation.
3. DrywallAfter the board is hung and before the joints and fasteners are taped.
4. FinalEvery plumbing fixture connected and working.

The sequence is written for every kind of project, so which stages a bathroom permit gets is up to the inspector.

Design rendering

The shower floor gets its own test. The 2025 California Plumbing Code has shower receptors tested by filling them with at least 2 inches of water for at least 15 minutes, and where there is no threshold, a temporary 2 inch barrier is built for the test (2025 California Plumbing Code, section 408.8.5). Calabasas lists the 2025 California Plumbing Code among the codes it enforces (City of Calabasas FAQs).

Design rendering

Code rules that shape the design

The city's bathroom checklist lists what the finished room has to meet, with the code section for each (City of Calabasas bathroom checklist):

• Water use. Showerheads at 1.8 gallons a minute, sink faucets at no more than 1.2 gallons a minute, and toilets at 1.28 gallons a flush. The same figures are in the state's green building code (2025 CALGreen 4.303.1). With more than one showerhead, the combined flow stays at 1.8 gallons per minute unless only one can run at a time, and a hand shower counts as a showerhead.
• Shower size and valve. At least 1,024 square inches inside, able to hold a 30 inch circle, with a pressure balancing or thermostatic mixing valve. The size rule is section 408.7 of the 2025 plumbing code, measured at the top of the threshold (2025 California Plumbing Code).
• Toilet space. The plumbing code keeps a toilet at least 15 inches from its center to a side wall or anything beside it, and leaves at least 24 inches clear in front of a toilet or sink (section 402.5).
• Electrical. GFCI protection on the bathroom receptacles, a 20 amp circuit for them, and a vacancy sensor for the lights.
• Ventilation. An ENERGY STAR exhaust fan with humidity control, ducted to the outside.

Glass near water has its own rule. Glass in the walls or enclosure around a tub or shower counts as a hazardous location, and has to be safety glass, when its bottom edge sits less than 60 inches above the floor you stand on. Glass more than 60 inches away, measured across from the edge of the tub or shower, is exempt (2025 California Residential Code R324.4.5). That catches the shower door, and also a window inside or beside the shower.

Design rendering

Design rendering

Older houses: fixtures, lead and asbestos

If the house was built before 1994, or before 1978, the remodel picks up rules that have nothing to do with the new tile.

The fixture rule reaches the whole house

For a house finished and ready to live in by January 1, 1994 (Civil Code 1101.2), state law makes a permitted remodel carry a condition: for any alteration or improvement to a single-family home, the permit applicant has to replace all noncompliant plumbing fixtures before the building department gives final approval (Civil Code 1101.4). It says all, not only the ones in the room being remodeled.

Noncompliant means a toilet built for over 1.6 gallons a flush, a showerhead rated over 2.5 gallons a minute, or an indoor faucet rated over 2.2 gallons a minute (Civil Code 1101.3). The city's checklist repeats it: noncompliant fixtures are replaced before final. There are narrow exceptions, such as a licensed plumber certifying that a replacement is not technically feasible (Civil Code 1101.7). So walk the house before the estimate is written, and have the old toilets and showerheads in the other bathrooms counted in.

Lead paint in homes built before 1978

Under the federal lead rule, a firm has to be EPA certified to advertise or do covered renovation work in most homes built before 1978. Work touching no more than six square feet of painted wall or trim in a room counts as minor repair, but window replacement and demolition of painted surfaces are always covered, whatever the size (US EPA RRP program). Tearing out a painted bathroom wall is demolition of a painted surface, so ask whether the contractor's firm holds the certification.

Asbestos surveys before renovation

In this air district, a home is covered by the asbestos rule, and the rule calls for the building to be thoroughly surveyed for asbestos before renovation, with the district notified at least 10 working days ahead when the work is large enough to need notice (South Coast AQMD Rule 1403). Two exceptions get misread:

• The owner-occupant exception covers an owner of a single-unit home who does the renovation personally. It does not cover a contractor's job.
• The survey is waived for single-unit homes when less than 100 square feet of asbestos material is removed. The rule defines single-unit homes to leave out condos and townhouses, and it does not say how anyone knows the amount is under 100 square feet without testing.

Old sheet vinyl, floor tile mastic, textured ceilings and joint compound are the usual places to ask about before demolition starts.

Questions people ask