Changes To CA Laws Expected To Make Building Granny Flats Easier

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — Residents of Sonoma County and the rest of California should have an easier time building accessory dwelling units — small homes on the site of larger, single-unit houses — when changes in state laws go into effect in 2020. As of Jan. 1, there will be no requirement as to the minimum lot size, and the distance the units must be set back from the street will be shorter, according to the California Association of Realtors.

Also, private covenants — CC&Rs — may no longer prohibit the units on lots zoned for single-family dwellings. However, properties must have adequate water and sewer or septic capacity in order to have such a unit.

The units are also known as "granny flats" or "backyard cottages." They are small and self-contained, with their own entrances, cooking, and bathing facilities on the site of larger, single-unit dwellings.

The units can be built in backyards or within the same house, but the same person must own them.

"Accessory dwelling units provide property owners with the opportunity to generate income or house family members, while helping increase the number of housing units in the county," David Rabbitt, chair of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, said in a statement this week.

The units are becoming more popular in response to the housing crisis in the Bay Area and across the state.

California cities saw a jump in the number of backyard cottage applications and issued permits in 2017, according to the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley.

For example, there were 33 permit applications for the units in Oakland in 2015. By Nov. 1, 2017, the city had received 247 such applications, more than seven times the amount from two years prior.

Across the bay in San Francisco, 41 units were permitted in 2015, jumping to 593 in 2017.

The statewide housing crisis is especially dire in Sonoma County. Thousands of homes were destroyed in the county in 2017 when the Northern California wildfires raged that fall. County officials have worked to make rebuilding easier for residents who lost their homes.

The county will implement the state regulatory changes going into effect Jan. 1 and will work with property owners to permit new accessory dwelling units, the Sonoma County Permit and Resource Management Department announced this week.

Zoning permits will no longer be required for the units, though the process will still require building permits and any applicable related permits such as septic visit Sonomacounty.ca.gov/PermitSonoma/ADUs.

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