Luxury Landscape Design
in Del Mar
Beach-Casual Outdoor Living, Where the Turf Meets the Surf

Yes, this is the biggest difference from a place like La Jolla. Del Mar is its own incorporated city with its own Planning Department, its own Design Review Board, its own certified Local Coastal Program, and even its own municipal water utility. Permits, design review, and Coastal Development Permits are all issued in-house by the City of Del Mar, not the City of San Diego. The California Coastal Commission generally only gets involved on appeal. Practically, that means your project is judged against Del Mar's own design and coastal standards, and a firm that knows those standards is a real advantage. Modern Yardz manages Del Mar's combined Design Review and CDP process end to end.

Often, yes. Del Mar's Design Review Ordinance makes most exterior work subject to some level of review, and the landscape design itself is explicitly part of it. The city weighs placement, size, materials, colors, walls, fences, and the type and extent of planting, with strong emphasis on protecting neighbors' ocean views. Minor projects can go through Administrative Design Review based on neighborhood input, while larger-scope work goes to a hearing before the Design Review Board. We design to those criteria from the start, using view-protective layouts and harmonious materials so projects move through review rather than getting stuck in it.

Yes, with the right engineering. Del Mar's seacliffs are soft, fast-eroding sandstone over weaker claystone, and uncontrolled water is the leading cause of bluff failure, so drainage is the first thing we design, not the last. Bluff-adjacent projects fall under the city's Coastal Bluff Overlay Zone, require a site-specific geotechnical report, and must respect bluff-edge setbacks (typically around 40 feet, often increased by a parcel's erosion analysis). We engineer surface and subsurface drainage, keep added load like pools and heavy hardscape back from the edge, and use deep-rooted native plantings for stabilization. New hard armoring such as seawalls is tightly restricted, so respecting the setback is the strategy.

Del Mar sits fully exposed between two lagoons, under a heavy marine layer and constant salt air, so we lead with marine-grade materials and a salt-tolerant palette. That means 316 marine-grade stainless for outdoor kitchens and hardware, powder-coated aluminum, porcelain pavers, and corrosion-resistant lighting and pool equipment, plus agaves, succulents, ornamental grasses, palms, and coastal natives that shrug off salt and humidity. Every landscape we design meets California's MWELO water-efficiency standards, documented for Del Mar's own water utility, with hydrozoned smart irrigation and a drought-tolerant plant selection.

All of them: the Beach Colony, Olde Del Mar, Del Mar Heights, the Crest and Crest Canyon, Del Mar Terrace, and Del Mar Woods. Each is a different design problem: tight, flat, ultra-premium beach lots in the Colony; hilly, view-protective lots in Olde Del Mar; and larger mesa lots in the Heights. One note we always clarify up front: Del Mar Heights (inside the City of Del Mar) is separate from Carmel Valley and Del Mar Mesa, which are City of San Diego communities that share a 'Del Mar' mailing address but follow different permitting. We confirm which jurisdiction governs your parcel before we design.

Construction timelines are similar to the rest of San Diego, with most pool and landscape projects running 10 to 16 weeks of build time, but Del Mar's approval phase is the variable. The city's Design Review process and its in-house Coastal Development Permit process can add to the front end, especially on view lots or bluff-adjacent parcels that need geotechnical analysis. We give you a realistic, parcel-specific timeline at the design stage that accounts for whatever Design Review and coastal approvals your project needs, rather than an optimistic estimate that ignores Del Mar's own process.