Two questions before any project-specific one
You'll hire five to ten consultants on a small San Gabriel Valley development. That team decides whether the project runs or whether every phase turns into a coordination problem. Ask both of these in every interview, before anything project-specific:
How many projects are you currently working on? A capacity check. Someone juggling fifteen active jobs is slow to respond, slow to revise, and slow to show up on site. Someone with two will give you attention — but may be light on recent experience.
Have you worked in this city before? Local experience beats résumé prestige. An architect new to your jurisdiction burns weeks learning its plan-check quirks with no relationships to lean on. Someone with three completed projects in your SGV city already knows which plan checker to call and which preferences to design around. Most SGV cities now run plan check through an online portal, so ask specifically about that city's portal — corrections cycles are where local familiarity actually shows up. Our city-by-city ADU and code reference covers what's already sourced per city.
One hour in person beats ten emails. Early in the project, take the meeting even if it costs you a half day.
The consultant lineup
Pricing varies by region and by year. The ranges below are historical — Southern California, ≈2018 — and are here as relative anchors, not current quotes. Verify current rates with at least three bids.
| Consultant | Typical turnaround | Fee (SoCal, ≈2018) | What you're actually buying | The one question to ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architect | ~2 months | $8–$15/sq ft | The drawing set everything else references | Is landscape, MEP, or interior design included, or billed separately? |
| Civil engineer | 2–3 weeks | $1–$2/sq ft, or $5k–$10k flat on smaller projects | Grading plan, drainage plan, erosion control, hydrology report — and the property staking | Which SGV cities have you filed in? Their stamp is on this for life |
| Geological engineer | ~2 weeks | Priced per test pit | Bearing capacity and foundation recommendations | Hand drilling or machine drilling? It drives cost and site access |
| Structural engineer | ~4 weeks | $1–$1.5/sq ft | Preliminary layout, framing and foundation, retaining wall design | Have you coordinated with this project's geological engineer before? |
| MEP / Title 24 consultant | 2–3 weeks | $0.50–$1.50/sq ft | HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and the Title 24 compliance set | The most-skipped hire. Title 24 problems surface at plan check and cost a correction cycle |
| Landscape architect | ~1 month | $1–$2/sq ft | Irrigation, planting, drainage, water efficiency, fuel modification and fire department submittals | What are the retaining wall exposure heights in this city? |
| Septic designer | ~2 weeks | Varies | Percolation test, septic design, health department submittal | Will the land percolate, and what's the health department's current timing? |
| Interior design | ~2 months | $2–$6/sq ft | Concept, schematic, and working drawings | Full concept through working drawings, or design only? |
| General contractor | Bids take 4–6 weeks to collect | 8–12% of construction cost | The build, and the change-order terms you agree to now | What's your current workload, and who is the superintendent on my job? |
| Arborist | Days | A few hundred dollars | The protected-tree report the city asks for | Which species here are protected? Oak and walnut are common in the SGV |
| Superintendent (separate from the GC) | — | $50k–$80k annually | Daily supervision you don't have to provide | Worth it on custom spec, or when a GC needs supervision |
Two columns there are doing more work than the fee column. The turnaround column is your schedule — a civil engineer at 2–3 weeks and an architect at 2 months don't stack the same way, and a septic design waiting on a health department is a dependency, not a task. The deliverables column is the actual purchase.
Confirm these in writing before you sign
The fee everyone negotiates. The contract terms below are what actually decide whether the relationship works — and they're the questions a first-time owner doesn't know to ask, because nobody hands you the list.
| Consultant | Confirm before signing |
|---|---|
| Architect | Are other consultants (landscape, MEP, interior design) included in this fee or billed separately? Is printing/submittal cost included? What specifically counts as a "redesign" versus a "revision" — they're priced differently. How many site visits are included, and is there a penalty for missed milestones? |
| Civil engineer | Is property staking included, or a separate line item (roughly $3k on its own)? Do land survey, monument points, and neighbor's slope analysis come with this scope or not? |
| Structural engineer | How many site visits are included during framing? Have they actually worked with this project's geological engineer before, or will they need an introduction? |
| Landscape architect | Are fire department fuel-modification submittals included, or extra? Printing costs included or separate? |
| Septic designer | Is removal of an existing system included? Leach field or seepage pit — and is that choice theirs to make or yours? |
| Interior design | Full concept through working drawings, or concept only? How many site visits, and are they ordering material themselves or just specifying it? |
| General contractor | What percentage governs change orders? What are the general liability coverage limits, and are you named as additional insured? Is there a penalty clause for delays, or liquidated damages? |
Every one of these is a real gap somebody's project fell into, not a hypothetical. Get the answer in the contract, not in a conversation you half-remember six months in.
You're not hiring a person, you're buying a document set
The fee is the least interesting thing about a consultant. What matters is which documents come out the other end, because plan check will ask for a specific list and anything not in someone's scope becomes a change order or a delay while you go find someone to produce it.
The trap is the deliverable you didn't know existed. One previous city required property staking — a term and process I'd never heard of — before the project could even be scheduled for the planning commission. It turned out to be its own scope of work with its own timeline, tacked onto the project I'd already budgeted and scheduled. It's mandatory, it's nobody's default scope, and you find out during plan check unless you asked first.
So the question isn't "what do you charge." It's "what documents will this city require, and which of them are in your scope?" Ask the architect, and then ask each consultant the same thing about their own piece. Where the answers don't overlap cleanly, that gap is yours to fill and pay for.
Red flags, independent of expertise
Watch for these during interviews and the first few weeks of work:
- Slow response. Forty-eight hours to answer your first inquiry is forty-eight hours during a construction emergency.
- Vague scope. "We'll figure it out as we go" is a contract dispute with a delay fuse.
- Resistance to fixed fees or defined deliverables. The good ones can scope their own work.
- Priced well below the median of your other bids — they misread the scope, or they'll recover it in change orders.
Three things that decide the outcome
- The general contractor has more day-to-day influence over your final budget and schedule than every other consultant combined — they control subcontractor sequencing, coordination, and the change-order process while the job is running. Meet the onsite superintendent before you sign; that person runs your job day to day, not the name on the contract.
- Structural and geological engineers have to coordinate directly. Foundation design follows bearing capacity. Confirm in the interview that they've worked together, or will.
- Septic only matters if there's no sewer — percolation test, design, health department approval, and a recorded covenant, roughly 4–8 weeks if nothing goes wrong.
Where this fits in the sequence
Team selection is Phase 2 of seven — Construction 101 has the full sequence, and the land due diligence checklist covers what to verify before you hire anyone at all. Once the team's in place, writing the program and reviewing the design is what they're hired to execute against. Want a second opinion on a quote or a team before you sign? Schedule a consultation.