The ubiquitous granny flat in all its varied motif--- as a custom or cobbled design, a backyard bungalow, a casita, a refurbished garage, or a moored mobile home--- has emerged as one of the more viable answers to California’s housing crisis, now exacerbated by the 16,000 and still counting homes ravaged in last month’s Los Angeles fires.
Leasing out one for nearly 30 years on the side-yard of my Malibu home I have long appreciated its benefits, and coincidentally had written about them late last year in an article appearing in the Winter issue of The Panafold, a new, richly illustrated art and architecture print magazine centering on California; yes, print, as bold and beautiful as ever for those who love the feel of a magazine for bedside stands and coffee tables.
And here it is, edited down for my social media postings, which if you haven’t noticed I Iike to keep under 500 words for quick reads:
Find out what's happening in Malibufor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Labeled ADUs, for Accessory Dwelling Units, they have become in their ascendancy controversial, raising concerns of rampant illegal construction, hardening bureaucratic arteries, and recalcitrant cities, swayed by the fierce resident defense of restrictive zoning, in suburbia next to godliness.
Nevertheless, legally permitted ADUs are increasingly being produced, nearly 23,000 in the latest year as reported by the State of California, which is an impressive fifth of the total 116,000 new free- market single and multiple residential units built statewide during the same period.
Find out what's happening in Malibufor free with the latest updates from Patch.
But those are recorded figures culled from computers fed by desk bound bureaucrats and academics. Guesstimates of unpermitted, illegal ADUs conservatively are more than double the legal number, hidden as they are in backyards by hedges, in bland basements, as nondescript additions, above garages, and renovated pool houses. You might label them ad hoc housing.
A glimpse of just how prevalent the bootlegging was offered in an obscure report out of Stanford University where researchers using satellite imagery found that of the 1,300 ADUs built in San Jose several years ago an estimated 1,000 were built without permits.
A contractor specializing in ADUs, trading candor for anonymity, was quoted in the study declaring, “They're converting garages. They're doing additions in the back. They're making separate entrances. They're doing what they can to house their families,” adding that he is constantly asked to do such units. Other contractors have confided they only do illegals. “They’re easier.”
There actually have been illegal ADUs as long as there was housing with garages that could be converted, backyards where they could be sited, and in cities on apartment house roof...Prospects are that this quiet backyard boom of both legal and illegal ADUs can be expected to become more pronounced in forthcoming statistics, despite it happening mostly in suburbia and on the fringes of cities. The trend is clearly there. ....
Consider the benefits: Modest pre-designed and prefabricated modest units can be simply erected or recycled relatively efficiently and expeditiously, and at a fraction of the time and cost of archetypal new construction. This is especially significant comparing ADUs to the agonizing measured development of single-family homes and high-rise apartment complexes, where sites need to be found and primed and plans drawn and bureaucratically blessed.
Backyards are at the ready, and ADUs can be built quickly—, and, especially if illegally, where lengthy permitting, inspection processes and union requirements can be avoided…
Also finding them particularly attractive are the seniors with the kids long gone, rattling around large homes, but not wanting to move out of a neighborhood they’ve lived in for most of their lives; likely, and additionally probably need to pay if sell exorbitant capital gains. So they build an ADU, move into it, and rent out the master house, the income a retirement cushion...
This is seen as much more desirable than owners reportedly doing the same, though renting out their master house on a short-term basis as an Airbnb to transient vacationers. …
For the full article, get the magazine!
(THEPANAFOLD.COM) . You'll love it. And my just printed paperback, "An Urban Odyssey.”
