Solar panels in North Hollywood

North Hollywood began as Toluca, laid out in 1882 around today's corner of Lankershim and Chandler boulevards. The City's historic resources survey says the area joined Los Angeles in stages between 1915 and 1923, which is why LADWP, the city-owned utility, sends your bill.

The survey puts the east edge on the Burbank city line, mostly along Clybourn Avenue. Census Bureau maps agree: from Magnolia Boulevard north to Victory Boulevard, the west side of Clybourn is Los Angeles and the east side is Burbank. The line leaves the street just south of Magnolia, where it jogs west to Ledge Avenue, and again north of Victory, near the airport. Right at the line, the utility named on your bill settles it.

That line divides two sets of solar rules. LADWP runs its own net metering program, outside the CPUC's NEM 3.0 decision, and credit for power you export stays with the meter that recorded it. Across the line, Burbank Water and Power pays its avoided cost of energy for exports from systems whose permits were filed from January 1, 2026, and Burbank issues its own permits. Our guide to LADWP solar net metering covers your side, and our Burbank solar page covers theirs.

On your side, LADBS, the City's Department of Building and Safety, issues the permit; its nearest counter is in Van Nuys, by appointment. LADBS will not refer you to LADWP, so the grid connection is a second application. We handle both.

The oldest houses, the survey found, are modest wood-frame Craftsman and hip-roof cottages from the late 1800s and early 1900s, with a small cluster near the old town center. A hip roof slopes on every side, so an array keeps 3-foot paths on each face it uses and stays 18 inches off any hip with panels on both sides. That can leave a small cottage fewer panels than its size suggests.

Most owner-occupied houses came later. Across the three ZIP codes, about 8,400 of roughly 12,500 were built from 1940 to 1959, and about 1,300 are older, most of them in 91601, the ZIP code that takes in the old center.

The roof comes first. LADBS waives the separate structural permit for a flush-mounted array on a house or duplex only when, among other conditions, the roof has a single layer of roofing, shows no sagging or signs of alteration, and ends up no more than half covered. A re-roof over half the roof needs a Cool Roof Rating Council product, but wildfire rules add nothing: no part of North Hollywood is in a mapped fire hazard zone. Panels already on a worn roof? Our panel removal and reinstall service lifts them and puts them back.

Next, the main electrical panel. The online permit stops at a 225-amp service panel, an original panel from that era may lack room for a solar breaker, and replacing it moves the LADWP application to Type 2, so plan any electrical panel upgrade into the same project.

A detached garage or carport, which nobody lives in, is exempt from the Fire Department's path rules, so panels can cover more of that roof.

If an existing system has stopped producing, our solar repair service works on it, whoever installed it. Nearby: solar in Valley Village and solar in Valley Glen, west of the 170; solar in Toluca Lake and solar in Studio City to the south; solar in Sun Valley to the north; and every other area on our Southern California service areas page.