Solar panels in Panorama City

Burns and Kaiser hired the architects Wurdeman and Becket to plan more than 4,000 homes, and Kaiser Community Homes built them with the mass-production methods Kaiser had used on wartime ships. The City's historic survey describes two-bedroom, 800-square-foot houses with attached garages.

The original tract, nearly 1,700 houses between Van Nuys Boulevard and Woodman Avenue from Roscoe Boulevard to Osborne Street, went up mostly from 1947 to 1952. It is now the Panorama City Historic District, listed on the California Register. It is not a Historic Preservation Overlay Zone, though, and City Planning's map shows no HPOZ anywhere in Panorama City, so no preservation board reviews your panels.

The Fire Department's rules for houses call for 3-foot clear paths up both sides of every slope that carries panels, and keep panels 3 feet below the ridge when both sides have them. Those strips claim a bigger share of a small roof. Only detached structures such as a separate garage or carport are exempt, so an attached garage roof gets the same paths.

A flush-mounted array on a house can skip the LADBS building permit only if, among other conditions, the roof has one layer of roofing and no sagging, and the panels cover no more than half of all roof planes combined without hanging past any edge. Go past half, say to charge an electric car, and plan check adds a structural permit.

The curving streets turn the houses, too. In the City's building outlines, only about half the houses in the original tract have walls within 10 degrees of north-south and east-west; the rest are set at an angle, so neighboring roofs can face different ways. Ask for a production estimate drawn on your own roof's direction. An original main panel may also need an electrical panel upgrade before it can carry solar, an EV charger and central air together.

South of Roscoe, Van Nuys Gardens, about 700 houses begun in 1949, sits inside Panorama City despite its name. Its builders marketed the street trees: camphor, American sweetgum and Southern magnolia, which the survey found forming canopies over the streets. Where those branches reach a roof, the panels belong on the slope the canopy misses.

The California Energy Commission's utility map puts all of Panorama City inside LADWP's territory, with no Edison service. LADWP's own net metering rider nets your exports against your purchases one billing period at a time, and the CPUC's NEM 3.0 tariff for Edison customers doesn't apply. Our LADWP solar net metering guide covers how credits carry forward and what a lease needs to qualify.

LADBS issues permits and runs a counter in Van Nuys, by appointment. On a house or duplex, a rooftop system of 10 kW or less with single-phase service, a main panel of 225 amps or less and no more than two string inverters or four microinverter circuits can get an express permit online; others go to plan check. A battery adds a Fire Department plan check and permit. LADBS won't refer you to LADWP, so on each solar installation we file the utility application alongside the permit.

CAL FIRE's 2025 hazard map rates all of Panorama City non-wildland, and the City's Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone map doesn't reach it. So a re-roof may use Class B material, and the panels and racking need only the fire class required of the roof beneath them. If the roof is due, replace it before the array goes on, with a Cool Roof Rating Council-labeled product once the work covers more than half the roof. For panels already up, see solar panel removal and reinstall.

Buying a system outright? The residential federal solar credit ended on December 31, 2025; our 2026 solar tax credit guide covers the rest. Our solar repair service also works on arrays other companies put in. Nearby, see solar in North Hills to the west, solar in Van Nuys to the south and solar in Arleta to the northeast, or every area we serve.