ADU’s (Accessory Dwelling Units) For California

What this episode covers

Show Notes: ADU’s (Accessory Dwelling Units) for California! Guest Homes, Granny Flats, In Law homes or a Tiny Home. Designing and permitting for your new ADU Kit Home.  California has opened up and made it easier to get your ADU approved. Transcript: Steve Tuma: And making it easier for people to put in ADU in their yard is something that should really, really be important to people and make them realize this is an opportunity for them. Interviewer: Hello, everyone. And welcome to Episode 43 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me again in studio is the President and Founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want exactly as they want across the nation and worldwide since 1993, Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how are you doing, bud? Steve Tuma: Excellent. Always a good day. Interviewer: Yeah. Steve Tuma: We had another busy day helping people design their homes and a variety of different projects around the country. So … Interviewer: Is there ever a bad day to build a house? Steve Tuma: Not really. [Laughter] Steve Tuma: Waiting for tomorrow is you should just start now. Interviewer: There you go. Steve Tuma: You get the project going. Interviewer: So for today, I thought we would get into something specific to California home building, and this I think will – it will lead us in the future to our doing episodes here and there that are specific to different states as Landmark owner or builder customers are diverse and nationwide group. And so far, our first foray into that, California seems a good place to start and maybe we will go from west to east as we go along. And to that end, let’s talk about something, accessory dwelling units or ADUs as they are called in California. So let’s start off with you explain to us just what is an ADU? That would be a good place to start. Steve Tuma: Well, this is what’s interesting. It’s called an accessory dwelling unit. That’s the common word in California although in other parts of the country, it could be a granny unit, a guesthouse, an in-law suite, a separate home, a secondary home on the land. So they can be done anywhere. But I think you brought up the California thing because lately, California has made it easier for people to add these living units. So there is difference in – if you have like an outbuilding, like a storage building or something like that, an accessory dwelling unit is one that’s meant to be lived in. Interviewer: As a – not a storage unit kind of thing but something … Steve Tuma: Right. Interviewer: Right. Steve Tuma: An actual residence. It has got a bathroom, a sleeping area, a living area, and things like that. So what’s kind of happening is what the cost of housing in certain parts of the country specifically California by the larger cities, they are trying to figure out how do we make this affordable for people to live there? So previously, there were a lot of restrictions on building these accessory dwelling units or the ADUs. But now, they figured, “Hey, this is a way to offer affordable housing in these communities.” Interviewer: Right. Steve Tuma: So yeah, that’s basically what it is. It’s an accessory dwelling unit. Basically, it’s a separate little guesthouse. They do have a thing called a junior dwelling unit which is like if you converted a garage, an existing garage, to a living space. But we are looking more at the new construction of complete separate – basically, a smaller home that would be put on a parcel of land. Interviewer: Right. Now, what about this restriction on size? I mean is there such a thing as an ADU that’s too small or obviously,