General Contractor in Mountain View

Lot sizes in Mountain View vary sharply between neighborhoods, so whether a detached ADU or an addition is the better move is genuinely a per-parcel question. It is worth answering before you pay anyone to draw something.

Mountain View is the friendliest jurisdiction on our map for a single-family project, and it says so deliberately. The City states that it does not have discretionary design review for single-family homes and does not require noticing adjacent neighbours of construction — explicitly as an effort to reduce cost, time and process for homeowners. Meet the development standards for your zoning district and, with narrow exceptions, no Planning Division permit is needed at all. After Cupertino's two-storey hearings and Campbell's review board, that is a genuinely different experience.

The trade is that the numbers do the work instead, so they have to be right. Floor area ratio comes from a published formula: FAR = 0.50 − (0.00001 × lot area). A lot of 5,000 square feet or less is capped at 0.45, a lot of 10,000 square feet or more at 0.40, and anything between runs the formula. Front setback is 20 feet to the first-floor wall, with another five feet required for a second storey over an attached garage that projects forward. Rear setbacks step back as you go up: 20% of lot depth or 15 feet on the first storey, 25% or 20 feet on the second. Half the front setback area has to stay permanently landscaped, and street trees are required in front of every new home.

Two practical things. No discretionary review does not mean fast: the City puts a typical addition or remodel permit at three to eight months depending on scope, and an ADU at four to six months — and an ADU here needs no planning permit at all, just the building permit. Separately, Mountain View issues same-day online permits with no plan set for like-for-like work such as an AC unit, an EV charger, a furnace swap or a heat pump. Worth knowing before anyone charges you for a drawing you did not need.

City staff encourage sharing informal plans with Planning and Public Works before anything is drafted for permit. We take them up on that, because in a city with no discretionary review the only thing that delays you is a plan that does not meet a standard, and that is entirely preventable.

We work throughout Mountain View — whether you're in Downtown Mountain View on Castro Street, Cuesta Park, Old Mountain View, or North Bayshore, the build is the same standard.

Permits. Work in Mountain View is permitted through the City of Mountain View Building Division. We carry the submittal and the plan-check corrections — that is our job, not yours.

Mountain View runs a dedicated development-permits site separate from the main city site, and ADUs need a building permit but no planning permit.

Pre-approved ADU plans. Mountain View runs a pre-approved ADU plan program and is still building out its public gallery. Since AB 1332 took effect on January 1, 2025, California cities have had to run a pre-approved ADU plan program and post the approved plans publicly. Where a usable plan exists it can take real time and design cost out of a project, because the design has already been reviewed and only the site-specific work is left.