Who Else
is Doing It?
Case Studies
California
Most communities in California’s San Francisco Bay Area have made it easier, faster and, in some places, cheaper, to get approval to build an ADU. Some of the actions of Bay Area communities to encourage ADUs include the following:
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Livermore recently dropped its ADU permit fees substantially. |
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Oakland approved a zoning ordinance change to allow ADUs in nearly every neighborhood in the city. |
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Santa Cruz established pre-approved design prototypes to encourage and stimulate the development of
ADUs. |
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Daly City offers low-interest loans to low-income owners who agree to install accessory units and to lease the units to other low-income persons for a period of at last five years. |
In Santa Rosa California, between 39 to 47 ADUs have been approved each year since 1999. Most of them were built as part of new subdivisions (rather than in existing neighborhoods) and have been renting at rents affordable to low income households (defined as 60% of the area median income). One of these new subdivisions that is incorporating ADUs is
Courtside
Village, a neo-traditional pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use project. One hundred ADUs are part of the residential component of this development and the ADUs have allowed the developer to significantly expand the mix of housing types beyond what is typically offered in new subdivisions. As the image below/to the right/to the left illustrates, the ADUs in Courtside Village are one-bedroom apartments that are constructed above the detached garages of every single-family home that is located adjacent to an alley.
Including ADUs in the Courtside Village has benefited renters, homeowners, and developers. For example, Alan Cohen, the head architect of the development, estimates that about half of the 600 square foot apartments are rented out at a rate of $850 to $900 (the rest are used by the homeowners themselves as offices or guest bedrooms). The homes with ADUs currently sell for $390,000, and homeowners have an incentive to rent out the ADUs. Consider the following scenario: based on a 15% down payment and a 30-year mortgage at 7% interest, Cohen calculates that charging a rental fee of $900 for the ADU will cover 41% of a homeowner’s monthly mortgage payment (approximately $2200). In addition, the developer of Courtside Village, Alan Strachan, has said that ADUs are a profitable to build: while it costs about $35,000 to construct the ADU unit above the garage, the ADU adds about $50,000 to the sale price of the house.
Washington
Mercer Island, a small island community of 22,000 in Washington State instituted an aggressive ADU program as one of the city’s primary policies to achieve GMA requirements for accommodating new population. Since Mercer Island is a built-out community with little vacant land, finding space for constructing new residential housing is a challenge. The ADU program therefore encourages small dwellings (maximum 900 square feet) as part of existing or new single-family homes. Since 1995 about 173 new ADUs, both attached and detached, have been permitted in single-family residential zoning districts. This success was a result of streamlining the permitting process for ADUs, a good public education and information program, and low fees for permitting.
For the contact information of several other recent development projects that include ADUs, jump to the ‘Who You Gonna Call’ section.
  
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