Building A-du · The Census Bulletin
The Census Bulletin No. 3: Mar Vista leads the Westside's backyard boom
Chris Koss, AIA|Published September 3, 2026
Spotlight No. 006 crosses to the Westside. Mar Vista holds 752 ADU permits since 2020, No. 8 citywide, and 2025 came within one permit of its record year.
The Backyard Census is A-du's monthly count of Los Angeles ADU permits, pulled from the city's own public records. Every number below comes from a dated snapshot of LADBS permit data on the LA City Open Data portal (dataset pi9x-tg5x), pulled September 2, 2026, with permits current through August 29, 2026.
Five spotlights in, the census has covered the Valley's big four and Mid-City. Rows 6 and 7 on the board belong to the Valley again, Van Nuys and Sun Valley, so this month the spotlight keeps its promise to rotate and crosses to the Westside's top row instead.
Spotlight No. 006: Mar Vista, ZIP 90066
752 ADU permits issued since 2020, No. 8 in the City of Los Angeles and the highest Westside entry on the board. Nothing west of the 405 comes close.
The year-by-year shape is the story. Mar Vista's record year was 2022 with 136 permits, and where Mid-City fell away after its own 2022 peak, Mar Vista came back: 135 permits in 2025, one short of the record, and 91 already through late August 2026. The Westside's backyard wave has not crested.
The build mix rhymes with Mid-City's. 50.9% of Mar Vista's ADU permits are garage conversions, against roughly 40% citywide, and the units run small, a median of 504 square feet with about half under 500. On Westside lot prices, the garage at the back of the lot is the cheapest square footage in the neighborhood, and owners are treating it that way. (ADU types are classified from the text of the permit's work description, so treat the shares as close rather than exact.)
The citywide count
Los Angeles has now issued 35,533 ADU building permits since 2020. 2025 stands as the biggest year yet at 6,400, ahead of 2022's 6,051, and 2026 has reached 4,278 through late August, running ahead of last year's pace.
Every neighborhood in the top 20 has its own page, with the year-by-year trend, the build-type mix, and the size breakdown: browse the board.
Count your backyard in
If you own a home in LA, and especially if you own a detached garage you barely use, 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.
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. Counts are by ZIP, City of LA portion. Permits are not completed homes; some are never built. Full methodology and the raw data live in our public repository.