Building A-du · The Census Bulletin
The Census Bulletin No. 1: Los Angeles has issued 34,932 ADU permits since 2020
Chris Koss, AIA|Published July 30, 2026
We counted every ADU permit in the city's public records, zip by zip. North Hollywood leads with 1,605. Here is the first monthly readout of the Backyard Census.
The Backyard Census is A-du's monthly count of Los Angeles ADU permits, pulled from the city's own public records and published neighborhood by neighborhood. Every number below comes from a dated snapshot of LADBS permit data on the LA City Open Data portal (dataset pi9x-tg5x), pulled July 30, 2026, with permits current through July 25, 2026.
Los Angeles is short on homes, and a lot of the missing ones are hiding behind the ones we already have. So we started counting.
Since January 2020, the City of Los Angeles has issued 34,932 ADU building permits. The pace is not slowing: 2022 and 2025 were the two biggest years in the dataset at 6,051 and 6,399 permits, and 2026 already stands at 3,678 through late July. This is not a niche trend. It is a parallel housing program running quietly in backyards, one permit at a time.
Where LA builds
The San Fernando Valley swept the podium. North Hollywood leads the city with 1,605 permits across ZIPs 91605 and 91606 combined. Reseda is the biggest single zip in the city at 1,293 (91335). Pacoima (948, ZIP 91331) and Granada Hills (896, ZIP 91344) round out the top four.
But the map is wider than the Valley: Mid-City (826), Mar Vista (744), West Adams (739), Hyde Park (736), and Highland Park (629) all made the top 20, and Jefferson Park holds the twentieth spot at 522. Counts are by ZIP, City of LA portion, with same-named zips combined.
Every neighborhood on the board now has its own page, with the year-by-year trend, the mix of garage conversions versus detached builds, and how big people are building: browse the top 20.
Count your backyard in
The census is not just a scoreboard. If you own a home in LA, your yard might be next: run a free test fit to see whether an ADU could fit behind your house. It is a quick estimate, and humans verify site conditions before anything gets built, but it is the fastest way to turn curiosity into a real answer.
If your ADU is already on the census, it may already be on A-du: owners of newly permitted ADUs can claim their listing any time.
Methodology: ADU building permits issued by LADBS, City of Los Angeles, filtered to use class Accessory Dwelling Unit and building permits only (sub-permits excluded), January 2020 through the pull date. Permits are not completed homes; some are never built. Full methodology and the raw zip-by-zip data live in our public repository, and next month's bulletin will spotlight a new neighborhood.