Follow-up to previous communique under ‘Insights’ on our website, regarding the very unfortunate fires in Pacific Palisades and the property owner’s challenges to rebuild.
It’s no secret that many times a homeowner’s insurance policy won’t cover or sometimes even consider needed compensation for Architect fees, so that new custom home plans can be developed, which is a requirement preface to new home construction.
This involves a formidable amount of work to be performed by an Architect and his team, along with coordinating many consultants work as well. The architecture and support trades for a typical new home in Los Angeles, takes about (3) months to produce, before submittal to the building department for processing.
We produce quite detailed, comprehensive and very importantly, contractor constructibility architectural plans, by incorporating my three decades of builder experience right into the plans. This greatly helps to ensure that construction of your new home project can be built in a cost-effective, quality and timely manner.
As an alternative for the property owner who chooses to rebuild but doesn't have the resources to pay for traditional Architect fees and new custom home design plans, the following choice is available for more cost effective semi-custom home plans, that we have on occasion provided:
In lieu of starting from scratch in terms of an Architect creating new custom home designs, we’re okay especially in light of these challenging circumstances, to utilize ‘basic plans’ that we can in-turn tweak to meet your tailored design criteria and local codes as well.
In this case, a client would simply shop online and query the opportunity of architectural home plan designs available. Have fun exploring the many different floor plan layouts, exterior elevation styles, window designs, etc. Be sure to start with the overall dimensions that will be appropriate for your site and work with the latest guidelines regarding ’size’, setback and height rules. In general for a contemporary style home on a flat site, the total buildable square footage of the home and garage times $500/sq. ft., will equate to approximate base construction costs.
This can be an opportunity to have the new floor plan you may have always wanted or possibly adjust for new generational circumstances. Working with the exterior architectural form to maintain cost efficiencies is necessary, but most exterior materials can be substituted with: alternative textures, colors and materials to meet your desires (with fire resistant materials specified of course); interior attributes such as creative ceiling designs, skylight’s, energy efficient light fixtures; and new kitchen and master bath finish materials, can be incorporated into upgraded plans.
In order to realize the more cost-effective Architect fees that we may offer because of less time needed up front to create new plans, load bearing walls/ceilings/roofs need to stay in place. But ‘adjustments’ to non-load bearing interior walls could be incorporated as part of your tweaks to the floor plan. As well, the above options to alter the exterior elevation appearance can be specified to conform with HOA rules too.
So benefits to the property owner for above semi-custom home options include: two-four weeks less time to produce the plans; $10,000-$15,000 less in Architect fees; and
(20-40 hours) less time needed from the property owner during the initial phase of developing the plans.
Please use the Inquiry Form on our website to submit basic information regarding the property along with your new home objectives. Also please let us know if your insurance company is going to participate with some of the Professional fees or not and what provider (website address) of architectural plans you'll be using.
I’ll get back with you in a timely manner to schedule a phone call meeting, whereby we can then further discuss your scope of work, project schedule considerations and whatever else is important to your needs.
As a former resident who designed and built a new home for my wife and I in the Palisades, it’s my sincere hope that you can rebuild in this community, whether we work together or not.
Best Always!
Barry R. Shaw AIA, G.C.
BSA Inc. Design & Construction
Pacific Palisades Architect
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