The act of tucking an ancillary living unit—such as a backyard cottage, granny flat, in-law suite, guest bungalow, income apartment, or converted garage—onto the same site with a single-family house isn’t always welcome, or even legal, in many communities across the US. But there’s a growing trend to green-light “accessory dwelling units,” or ADUs. Most progressively, California passed legislation in 2017 to legalize these modest, self-sufficient dwellings throughout the state—prompted, in large part, by a chronic housing crisis and shortage of affordable options. Promoting diversity in scale and income levels, ADUs also advance the environmental benefits of “living small” and creating denser communities. The legal version of this building type has “already become immensely popular here,” says Christopher Hawthorne, chief design officer for the city of Los Angeles, where, in the past three years, ADUs accounted for 22 percent of new permits for housing units. To ease the process, municipalities across the state, including LA, have partially relaxed such requirements as parking and setbacks while developing programs with incentives to make more ADUs available to low- or moderate-income tenants. Now Los Angeles is taking steps to further streamline the permitting process, while capitalizing on the city’s culture of innovative and eclectic house design: Today, its Department of Building Safety (LADBS), in partnership with the mayor’s office, launched its ADU Standard Plan Program, offering homeowners the option of choosing from an online catalogue of fully vetted designs, reducing the permitting time to as little as a single day.
By Escher GuneWardena Architecture
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