Let’s get started! Now that you know about the benefits of ADUs and the experience of other communities with ADU regulations, it’s time to think about how to go about advocating for changes to your local zoning code to develop regulations that will explicitly allow and promote ADUs where you live. The rest of this section will address the two possible scenarios that might exist in your community:

 
Crack the code. Depending on how the local zoning code in your community is written, ADUs can either be (1) allowed ‘by right’ with few restrictions, (2) encouraged with a mixture of some restrictions, or (3) implicitly forbidden through the use of excessive restrictions. Therefore, your first step in promoting ADUs in your community will be to work with your local planning department to find out if your community has ADU-friendly regulations by checking to see if the zoning code explicitly allows (or even encourages) ADUs. If ADUs are in fact allowed in your community, pay careful attention to any and all restrictions placed on ADUs in the zoning code. Specifically, you’ll want to make sure that the code does not place excessively restrictive development standards on ADU (such as only allowing ADUs on extremely large lots or requiring too many dedicated parking spaces for an ADU) which can often amount to ‘backdoor prohibition’ on ADUs. 
 

If you’re not sure what the ADU regulations mean and how they are applied in the real world, ask the planning staff, or contact local low-income/senior housing organization and/or local developers and ask their opinion of how the existing ADU regulations could be improved.

Make the approval process as simple as possible. Besides reviewing the zoning code, find out what steps your local planning department requires for people who want to build ADUs. Are special checklists and/or plans required for ADUs? Besides standard permit processing fees, are other development exactions or impact fees assessed on ADUs (such as water or sewer connection fees)? [see the Development Exactions/Development Impact Fees tool] Are there any incentives for ADUs, such as fee reductions or waivers? Finding the answers to these often technical questions can become confusing for all but the most experienced developers, and especially for older homeowners. If the approval process is cumbersome, you can advocate for ways of streamlining it. In the interim, consider developing educational brochures, fact sheets, or individualized technical assistance programs that help homeowners with issues of permitting, design, development, financing, utility connections, taxes, and landlord/tenant issues. An example of this type of outreach to homeowners is the online ADU HomeOwner Packet: Add a House to Your Home developed by A Regional Coalition for Housing (ARCH) for east King County (WA) communities.

What can ADU’s do for you? ADUs can help your community accomplish several goals, but your advocacy efforts for ADU regulations will be more successful if you begin with clearly defined goals that recognize the unique circumstances in your community. For example, the measure of success of any individual community’s ADU regulations will vary from city to city, depending on whether the regulations were crafted in order to create more affordable housing, to increase densities along transit corridors, or both. 

Thus, if your town has a severe jobs-housing imbalance, then you should focus on how ADUs can help improve your community’s economic future by increasing the supply of affordable housing for workers and you would want to work with major employers in your community in developing an affordable housing strategy that includes ADUs as a component. The bottom line: the goals you want to achieve will define the process you use to implement ADUs regulations and the exact wording of those regulations.
Build partnerships with stakeholders. Your efforts to promote ADUs will be most successful if you work with other stakeholders. Identify the source(s) of greatest support and resistance to ADUs and build partnerships with these groups. Potential stakeholders to reach out to include:

Know your community. Start building a strong knowledge base to call upon in your efforts to advocate for ADU regulations by documenting your community’s need for ADUs. You can then share the results of your research with a broad cross-section of the community. You can begin by gathering basic information such as:

Get the regulations right.

LEARN MORE Crafting Meaningful and Balanced ADU Regulations (pop up window)

Even though more and more communities are recognizing the benefits of ADUs, neighborhood groups in some communities where regulations encouraging ADUs are being considered have voiced concerns about perceived impacts of ADUs on property values, density, neighborhood appearance, and increased parking and traffic congestion. In response to these concerns, many communities have adopted ADU regulations that tightly control the number of ADU additions allowed or attach excessively restrictive development standards to ADUs (such as requiring large lots or too many parking spaces). While these kinds of ADU regulations are meant to allay neighborhood fears and prevent neighborhood change, they often end up so restrictive that few ADUs get built (so that the regulations really amount to "backdoor prohibitions" on ADUs). In order to prevent this from occurring, see the sidebar Crafting Meaningful and Balanced ADU Regulations to learn about some of the issues to consider when writing ADU regulations for your community.

Don’t fear change. Since even the best-crafted ADU regulations will likely need to be modified at some point, your community should periodically review the effectiveness of your ADU regulations and be prepared to fine-tune them in response to changing conditions and new and/or better information. Consider the experience of the City of Carlsbad. The City’s Planning Commission recently expressed concern over the increase in the use of ADUs in order to satisfy the city’s inclusionary housing requirements: in Carlsbad, the growing number of ADUs are not typically being rented to low-income households but are used instead as guest rooms, recreation rooms, or offices. A review by the City found that ADUs were of limited value at providing significant affordable housing opportunities in Carlsbad unless the following conditions were met:

Based on this review, the City has decided to rethink how to use ADUs more effectively to increase the supply of affordable housing in their community.