Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)
The ArcFluence crew dives into the world of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) and their growing role in modern architecture and real estate. Join Nick and Paul as they discuss how ADUs can alleviate housing shortages, provide rental income, and offer flexible space for family needs. From basement conversions to freestanding backyard structures, they explore the various types of ADUs, challenges with zoning and permitting, and the innovative design solutions that make these small spaces functional and stylish. Whether you’re interested in adding value to your property or simply curious about the ADU trend, this episode offers valuable insights on how these units are transforming the way we live, work, and invest.
Paul: who's missing? Somebody's missing.
Nick: I don't know. Somebody's missing, but we got Danny.
Nick: We got Danny.
Paul: Stella's
Nick: here. Stella's here. I don't know. I think this is everyone. Oh, wait,
Paul: wait. There's a third person, right? Nino. Oh, he doesn't really, he just
Nick: asked me. That's interesting questions and doesn't really contribute that much. We'll give him
Paul: a break because it is his birthday. Okay. Birthday weekend.
Paul: Birthday weekend. Yeah.
Nick: All right. Fair enough. We miss you, Nino. Um, this is episode 17. We are going to be talking about ADU's accessory dwelling units and what that means for architecture and real estate and our lives.
Paul: Yeah, I think this is a great topic. I know in terms of just housing, right, and how housing has been handled everywhere in the country.
Paul: I mean, this is not just like a Columbus topic. Um, this is something that it's an issue everywhere and this is something that can help a lot basically alleviate some of the issue of, you know, the housing crisis, shortage of housing units, not going into like, you know, we'll get into it. But again, it's just like, well, let's talk about
Nick: it.
Nick: So an ADU to me, um, you know, I immediately go to income property, right? So I'm thinking, okay, great. I'm going to have another door, a rental unit, whether it's Airbnb, whether it's a short term rental, whether it's midterm rental, whether it's longterm tenant, or whether it's just a place I could have family stay.
Nick: Um, You know, at least down the road, right. I'm planning for the future. And quite frankly, it could also be an office for me. Right.
Paul: See, I don't necessarily, you know, I think we talked about the episode before having people come in and out. Right. So it's like, if it's my personal single family home that I'm living in, right.
Paul: Cause a lot of these are, excuse me, a lot of these are single family homes that. The unit is being added to on the same lot, so it's already existing development, existing neighborhood. Existing community and you're basically building this basically apartment unit next to your house
Nick: Which me so typically you're gonna own this land already.
Nick: So your costs are gonna be down on this investment I
Paul: mean affordability wise to build it. Sure. I mean like you don't have land to buy It's typically a smaller unit, you know stuff like that But for me to go to the right to the Airbnb thing or a short term rental, right? I just don't feel like I would, so for me, what I jumped to is more like, again, like the housing shortage and you know, I have family that comes from a different country on my wife's side.
Paul: And so it's like having the place for them to be right on, on the same line. You were
Nick: forced to buy a bigger house.
Paul: Yeah. It would have been nice to buy. a smaller house with a dwelling unit, right? Associated with it. Cause then I also get my separation from them and I don't have to have everybody in the same household necessarily.
Nick: Let's talk about that. There are a few different types of ADUs that people are implementing here and across the country. Um, sometimes we see them in the basement of the home, right? They have a,
Paul: they
Nick: have a separate
Paul: entry. I was going to say, let's take it one step back. Sure. So let's go to the beginning of it.
Paul: All right. Because basically countrywide, It was not really, especially here in the States, it was not really considered a thing that people did. Right. I mean, you saw a lot of it in Europe. You see a lot of it around the world. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's something that exists and is out there, but in terms of the United States, jurisdictions, cities, counties, you know, states don't really have rules and regulations that allow it.
Paul: Even in Columbus right now, it's limited. So it was 2017. LA. Yeah, Los Angeles, well, California as a state released a law that opened up the possibility, you know, ease these restrictions on these accessory dwelling units. And from that point forward, LA said, you know what, we're going to be the champions of this because they had to be, they had
Nick: to be overcrowdedness, um, the cost of living was outrageous.
Nick: Yeah.
Paul: Yeah. I think like for, uh, you know, parking space size apartment, like, you know, 10 by. 10 by 20 you're paying like half a million dollars in Los Angeles for something like that, like some little micro unit. Like it's just pricing out there is ridiculous. Housing is ridiculous. A lot of it's developed and they don't have room to keep growing and expanding out.
Paul: I mean, it's already sprawling and crazy, right? So for them, they're like, we're going to be the champions of this and we're going to, Write the book on how to do it
Nick: and that kind of showed up in three different Scenarios off the top of my head at least they some were created in the basement And they had their separate walkout.
Nick: They have that division of separation from the house the main house in the basement unit Sometimes we see them in the garage where we actually convert a freestanding garage to you know, We, we sacrificed that parking and now we have a dwelling there. Sometimes we tear down that garage. We build a carriage house, which we're going to talk about one of our projects that we did.
Nick: Um, and then I guess there is a fourth. Sometimes we just see a freestanding structure that's in the backyard that because of the larger lot size, we, they have the ability to drop in some prefab design in the backyard and utilize that as. you know, whatever, whatever they're able to. And a lot of times that kind of translates into home office in that particular uh, version
Paul: of it.
Yeah.
Paul: I mean, but the change from when they started basically creating an easier process, um, within the couple of years, it was a fifth one fifth 20 percent of all permits in the city of Los Angeles before these, these, ADU units. Yeah. And that compares to like Seattle around the same time. 2 percent of the applications for permits were basically this accessory dwelling units.
Paul: So other cities do, I mean like we have units here in Columbus too, but again, you're talking like an amount that's 10 times more within, within a city limit just because the rules and regulations and process are easier.
Nick: And I believe that was back in 1718 when they were first getting things off the ground.
Nick: I think it's stabilized somewhat these days. And. Yeah. I mean, I have family in Seattle, so I know that it's something that's talked about quite often. People are adding ADUs constantly, but there are limitations to it. There's there are city guidelines that have been created and there are standards and there are rules and regulations on what you can do with it, how long, you know, and, and, And certain restrictions there.
Paul: I think even, um, in LA they actually have even in a, like a pre approved list of units that you can like buy from the city. They have programs to help with like property management, um, finding project managers, contractors. And this
Nick: streamlines a process to make it easy. It's kind of an incentive. For people to take action and do this.
Paul: So, yeah, for me, that's where everything started was around that timeframe where they kind of opened the floodgates and said, yeah, let's do this thing. You know, we have a crisis, we need to address the issues here and we can't just keep going the route that we're going because nothing's going to change.
Paul: We need to change something. And I think for them it's, it's been a huge thing.
Nick: No, I think it's a great opportunity for a lot of different types of people.
Paul: I know Columbus, the whole reason why we went to that, uh, zone in meeting. The whole reason why Columbus wanted to change their zoning regulations.
Paul: Number one reason housing. So they looked at these corridors is like the first step to help address some of the housing shortage. And again, like affordable housing. They even allow again these increased heights. and increased footprints for basically, uh, or increased demand. So you have more units within the building if you have affordable units within your building.
Paul: Yes. So that's their number one concern. And again, I don't know why they're, you know, so if they're listening, they should look at, look to cities like, LA to open up some of the ADU units here because this process we went through with our client was just not a fun process How long did it take us like nine months?
Paul: it was almost a year total almost a year total from conception to Final approval now granted. This was also within the Victorian Village Commission. So there is Special requirements on top of special requirements. I mean you had so many hoops to jump through right
Nick: And they were pushing back on the original house design too.
Nick: And I think that the, we redid, redesigned the house as well. So that incorporated into that timeline as well.
Paul: Yeah. Well, because we had, because it's not allowed, it's not permissible to go and just do whatever you want with your unit back there. They had to get variances. Um, so because of the variances, there was existing things with the house where they're like, well, listen, since you're going through the variance process anyway, let's get it documented.
Paul: And show them within the, so there was things with the house that had to play into it too. But I mean, regardless, you had to go through the commission, you had to go through the variance process to get the even approval to do this. And then, then you were finally like cleared through both parties to then finally get to in front of the building
Nick: department.
Nick: And listen, it is a complicated process in some cases, but let's, let's take just a small step back and, and see how it really can open up the door, open up the options for, for homeowners, for investors. Um, uh, Uh, for example, like I know interest rates are coming down, but that's another factor that kind of plays into people moving in general.
Nick: Like if you have a home and you're, you're, you're a smaller home, your family's growing, you want to get into something bigger that can accommodate your family's needs. Well, let's do an addition or let's build, let's build another, uh, you know, ADU that can supplement our space, whether it be office, you know, parents, visitors, guest bedroom, whatever.
Paul: Do you know why I think these are also an attractive idea? Huh? Let's say instead of doing an addition, You're ripping the, you know, you're, you have to connect it somehow. How are you connecting from one section of the house to the other?
Nick: Breezeway.
Paul: Well, no, no, no, not like the dwelling unit. I'm talking about like if you do an addition.
Paul: Okay. There's construction that's going to be going on with your existing house. It's more
Nick: expensive. Yeah.
Paul: Well, that and it's also more disruptive to your life because you don't have your existing house that's intact and then you're building this thing within your You're a lot, right? You're building an addition onto your house.
Paul: So I mean, again, you're disrupting your existing single family home. Well,
Nick: let's just say, Hey, we, we, we just need more space, right? I don't, I have no intention of renting this out. I don't need another apartment right now in my life, but I need more space for my family. Well, okay. If we're now being thoughtful about the future saying, Look for a little bit more this, where are we going to spend this amount of money?
Nick: Right. If we spend a little bit more to make this a true functional apartment for future use later. Now we can use it, the space for what we need it to, to be now. And then down the road, when the kids move out or whatever, where our circumstances change, it's It's a, it's an income property, right? It's a, it's a stream of revenue for that property as well.
Paul: Even, even if it isn't that, say you go to sell the house down the road, right? So let's say, okay, the kids move off and whatever, and you're not necessarily thinking about renting it out or, you know, um, grandparents come to help with the kiddos and they're living in the unit and then they leave and, you know.
Paul: kiddos are older, whatever. So circumstances change. What if you want to sell it again? It's just value in general, whether you rent it
Nick: or sell it, just the functionality of it. So in LA we saw this. When, when they first, um, opened the floodgates on this, on these loose, uh, zoning laws. But basically like, what if we have a young couple who's starting out their life and they want to live in the city, but they can't afford to live, right?
Nick: So the housing markets like this is a little bit too expensive. It's going to make them uncomfortable. What if there's a rental income? That's going to help with that mortgage payment. So it's actually allowing some people to afford to buy housing.
Paul: Yeah. Well, by rent, basically. Right. Cause somebody again, like
Nick: whoever
Paul: owns it, I'm
Nick: saying they buy the house, they buy, they buy the house with the ADU and that mortgage alone would be a struggle for them.
Nick: But if they rent out that property, that income is going to offset. and allow them to be able to be homeowners.
Paul: I was actually thinking different generation, like, you know, younger generation, they're coming fresh out of college. And like you said, maybe they want to live in a certain place. So they find someone who has an ADU and that's an option for them to rent.
Paul: Right to some that's also correct someone's who's older and it's like great I have one and I need someone to rent here, you know,
Nick: great Well, even if you have your say you're in your 30s or 40s and and you have you have the credit and everything to buy a home It's still a stretch in some cases to live in certain markets Yeah,
Paul: I think it always is when when you're trying to balance your budget You're, and you're always trying to maximize what you're getting for what you're paying.
Paul: And it's always that fine dance of what's your income, what's your, you know, your debt ratio to your, you know, all of these things are factoring in. This is
Nick: a great way to offset those costs and honestly dip your toe in the water for, The next step to like, if, if this is something that, that you can manage successfully and you're okay with it, maybe you scale, maybe you get another rental property and eventually it becomes this whole, whole different concept of building wealth and retiring early, or at least retiring comfortably.
Paul: Yeah. I know that was one of the concerns that LA had, um, over, you know, allowing, opening this up and allowing basically an easier process to get all these approvals. They were worried about the character of the community, um, parking situation and, and just basically people coming in and saying, great, I'm going to short term rental everywhere.
Paul: Yeah. And honestly, it really hasn't happened. Um, yes, there are people that do it, but to the extent that they were worried about it, I think it's, um, Again, to address the housing crisis is more of an issue than worried about character from short term renters coming in and coming and going. I mean,
Nick: I, I, I'm on the conservative side when it comes to like fiscal issues and things of that nature.
Nick: And you're just
Paul: thinking the money coming in and you're,
Nick: well, listen, I don't want people to be able to necessarily tell me what I can do with my property. I'd like to have as much, as many options as possible. So everyone's using it. It's hard to do blanket. Um, legislative, you know, like policy to govern everybody because we're all different phases of our lives and we all have different circumstances.
Paul: So yeah, I'm in the middle because yeah, I think it should be more open. I also, I also like a certain amount of regulation because again, like you want to maintain your character. You want someone to design it thoughtfully so it fits in with the surroundings. Uh, you know, you, you want something that's appropriate.
Paul: So again, if it's just, Open and you know, the wild wild west out there and it's like, whatever it goes. But I mean like also that's job security for us just to throw that out there to you. Sure. Because it's like, again, if anyone can do anything to, to what you just said to that point, it's like maybe that also is not so good.
Paul: So I find, I think
Nick: you're right. There's a compromise because if I live in a neighborhood, I don't want my neighbor making the wrong decisions.
Paul: Correct.
Nick: That's going to hurt my property value. Yeah. So I think, or just
Paul: be an eyesore, whether it doesn't hurt your, say the property value is still the same.
Paul: Still, if it's an eyesore, it's an eyesore. And that's
Nick: why a lot of these guidelines are in place. Um, location, size setbacks on the property and just overall appearance.
Paul: I know, um, in the beginning, I think again, LA going back to LA, I don't think they had any of those regulations in place. And then very quickly they discovered some of the concerns and they said, great, we're going to start.
Paul: With a guideline, we're going to have a few regulations to kind of stipulate style, size, setback, stuff like, stuff like that. Right.
Nick: And I know in other cities like Seattle, they limited how many Airbnbs you can have per person, which is going to be like, instead of trying to get all these properties out there and up just for income and cut corners or whatever, whatever's needed to get these up and rented, let's be thoughtful about it.
Nick: Like, let's, let's add to the value of these properties, not just a cash flow play.
Paul: Yeah. Yeah. I'm not familiar with, um, Seattle. You have family that's out there, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do they have, do they know people with any ADU units? Sure. Yeah.
Nick: I, it's very common. It's very popular. And everybody is always is leaning towards that as soon as they can afford to do it.
Nick: Yeah.
Paul: I know the article, um, the article, at least that were started, this whole conversation between us, um, was coming off of, uh, arc daily. Uh, we'll put a link up to it, but, um, yeah, and the article, they were focused solely just on LA because they were the ones really. Driving the bus. Basically, I think other cities have followed their lead.
Paul: Basically,
Nick: you got to look at what's happened the last few years too, with COVID and people working from home. So, I mean, it's not just, it's not just a rental. It's not just for, you know, in the, in the Midwest, we call it, we call these mother in law suites. Um, and, And now it's, it's really serving as a home office to it.
Nick: So it really varies. Like it's a very versatile space. I think it adds a lot of property value.
Paul: Yeah. I know in the beginning when you said that was the first thing you thought of, like, like I mentioned, you know, having the family from coming from a different culture, you know, something like that mother in law suite.
Paul: Yeah. That, you know, something, just a separate space for them to be. You know, and, and also be right there with us. So, and I get the whole, like just another space to use for your office or whatever. Um, you know, a lot of times now even multi generational housing is a thing. So whether, you know, like I have older parents that are getting up there in age, you know, who knows, maybe at some point, like they'll be coming to live, live with us so that we can help
Nick: manage.
Nick: It is super common. All over the world for generational housing. We are getting a lot of requests now. We just got, we're just started a project right now where they wanted to do a carriage house or separate, you know, a second home on the property. Um, and
Paul: yeah, very quickly we're like, hold on, he doesn't allow it.
Paul: So like, do you want to, But how soon do you want this? Do you want this within, within the year or from a year from now you maybe think about beginning? So
Nick: there's some strategy behind it. So basically we had to look at zoning and we're saying, Hey, in this particular neighborhood, you can't just build a second home.
Nick: You can't build a carriage house. There's a long process and it's not guaranteed for approval. So this is probably our best strategy here. Let's build an addition to the house. They're not gonna have a problem with that. Yeah. And we can essentially build the same type of secondary dwelling apartment that you need for your parents, which is what they're building it for.
Nick: Yep. But it's attached. So technically it's all part of the same Right. Structure. Right. So when we're attaching, you know, an A DU to a
Paul: house Yeah. And it can, by the way, it cannot just be a breezeway, right. It has to be enclosed, A conditioned space, conditioned habitable space. Be it a hallway or whatever it is.
Paul: Yeah. Something has to connect that and actually be part of the space that you inhabit.
Nick: And we can get creative. Like in this particular case, we spoke about doing this really upscale mudroom laundry room area. We're bringing the laundry from the basement up to the main floor and we're creating this zone in the middle where we can come in from the parking from the driveway and you can go to the left to want the, the, yeah, the, the left wing, which is going to be their apartment or you can go to right to the house and in this, in this.
Nick: Common space, now we have all this function with laundry, half bath, mudroom, etc. Which I think is awesome. Yeah.
Paul: Yeah. And, um, just to jump back to the one comment you made, you know, obviously like you said, say you don't do the addition, you choose to do the longer process. Um, it's not that it's, I mean, yes, you're right.
Paul: It's not guaranteed. To get approval, but it's not necessarily like the cities are fully opposed to it I know especially in Columbus Like I said, the whole reason they did the zoning the number one thing was a housing crisis Yeah, so if you're proposing an ADU somewhere in Columbus Columbus is definitely very receptive to it But there's a process to go through.
Paul: Well, with all the different municipalities here, there are some
Nick: that aren't. Also, it
Paul: depends. I mean, you could be on, yeah, you could be in, you know, Delaware County and, you know, in, in Delaware or whatever, Sunbury or whatever, somewhere around the Columbus area, or even Dublin has their own regulations or growth city or so.
Paul: Every city jurisdiction is going to be different for how these, they look at it. I know Columbus, like. For the carriage house that we did, um, in the Victorian village, it was definitely something that, um, was receptive, but we had to go through that whole process and that process. Yeah. If you go to grow city, they might have a different tone on on what they feel in terms of allowing it or not allowing it.
Nick: And it's
Paul: interesting to
Nick: like some investors, like, They'll, they'll want to keep costs down, right? Naturally, and even homeowners, and they'll want to try to do that process themselves. In this particular case, it didn't really work out to their advantage. They went to a few meetings and there was just, there was a lot of stuff that needed to be covered.
Nick: And address. So we then went to, actually, I think we only had to go to one.
Paul: I think we went to, we went to two, actually, no, we went to two or three. Well, you went to one. I think I went to a couple more. Always outworking me. Yeah. So I just had to go and sit and look pretty. Cause again, for, especially for that process, they were receptive to it.
Paul: They had a few questions. They wanted to see a few things differently, notate a few things, you know, but I mean, for the most part, they weren't, they weren't wholly opposed to it. So, but even then, you know, Columbus could change their tone on it. And again, guaranteed approval is just not a thing.
Nick: And I do think, again, this one was a little special because of the, the commission of that particular neighborhood and the hardy board requirements, the sconce requirements, the roofing materials, the window that, you know.
Nick: Yeah,
Paul: we had to go through and do like these, uh, basically, um, we obtained some, some drone images, even like of the site. Um, so that they could see the relationship to the character of the neighborhood around it, um, to the house, right? So it's like an overview of the whole lot and we had to do different views, like views from the alley views from, you know, these aerial perspectives showing kind of like the entire context.
Paul: They wanted to see a bunch of stuff. They wanted to see sections that had, uh, you know, the relationship to the house. What's the height relationship? What's the, you know, what does the side look like? Oh, we want you to add a window down in the garage space, even though we had to garage, We had to address parking.
Paul: Yeah. So, I mean, they wanted, yeah, they wanted a whole slew of things basically.
Nick: Now, if you're on the corridor, obviously some of those things go out the window, which is great. But if you're in some of these neighborhoods, we still run into some challenges.
Paul: And I, unfortunately I think a majority of the corridors though, like while yes, it does incentivize stuff for housing, um, a majority of the quarters are still.
Paul: Uh, commercial in nature, right? Right. So like you're, you're a friend that we're doing the project for that has the woodworking shop. Technically, he's on the corridor. And so, you know, if, if there's certain things that he wants to do, yeah, great. He doesn't have to go through the variance process, but I mean, his building is, is a woodworking shop.
Paul: It's like a commercial space. Basically, that's what it was before. It's probably what it's going to be after. It's not like a single family home on the corridor.
Nick: Well, along the lines of thinking with all, you know, the reason they did this zoning is because it was really needed, but also because of the hundreds or maybe was it thousands of, uh, variance requests just for the corridors in the thousands.
Nick: Yeah. So I think as we start seeing higher numbers and more requests for ADUs and outside of that, Like in these neighborhoods and stuff, I think,
Paul: well, I know phase two is coming. So phase two for Columbus is coming for their zoning initiative. Phase one was just the corridors, which is approved and on the books.
Paul: Um, the phase two, they are going to look at other, other things. And again, if, if they're listening, I hope they really look hard at, um, these ADU units and, provide some rules, provide some regulations, but open it up some and allow for some more freedom so that you don't have to jump through all these hoops to get something like this done.
Paul: Um, so yeah, I agree with you. Like, The, the regulation that they have there is definitely frustrating. Um, so yeah, if they can open it up some, that'd be great. You know,
Nick: I did want to talk a little bit about the design and the thoughtfulness behind some of these ADUs that we're starting to see go up. Um, a lot of them are modern in nature, which is great.
Nick: We're also seeing like,
Paul: Yeah, I mean, but again, I think an important thing and another concern again, fitting into the community because again, all of these are not a piece of dirt that you're developing, going into farmland, destroying farmland, building a house, whatever, right? It's an existing community, existing house that you're building next to.
Paul: So if your house looks like a Cape Cod cottage and you build this modern looking shoe box, whatever you want to call it. Container. You know, uh, just like shipping container style or something, the industrial, it's going to clash with, with your house and with the neighborhood. Cause maybe the rest of the neighborhood is probably in that Cape Cod style.
Paul: Well, if you go with that type of
Nick: design in that type of neighborhood, you're going to want to have some screening. Obviously you're not going to want to have direct views from the curb. You know, it might be in the backyard or something like that. If it's in a, an established neighborhood with like an alley access and we're doing more of a, a carriage house style, it's essentially going to reflect a smaller version of the actual house.
Nick: So there's that connection with the architecture.
Paul: Yeah. I, yeah, I think again, like, I think some regulation for the style is definitely needed. Um, even, like I said, even LA that has their approved, They're pre approved list of houses that you can pick from. It's on the city website. You can go and pick a pre approved design.
Paul: Yeah.
Nick: I think that's, that was smart. But most of those are very small spaces and a lot of them didn't have bathrooms. They were, they're really more like, uh, offices. Um, I guess they're definitely, it's a full unit. Yeah. I know the, I know the, because of a cost factor too, is like, if people were working from home, that was just huge for them to like buy this room.
Nick: And it's literally just a room that's conditioned that they plop in the backyard.
Paul: But it's like if you want the modern aesthetic, like they have, they have ones that have more modern aesthetic with the pre approved list. But again, even if you pick that, if it's clashing with everything that's around you and with your house, they're not just going to let you do it.
Nick: Okay.
Paul: Right. But again, like that's, I think where a design professional comes in to help you through that process. So it's like, great, I want a modern aesthetic and my house is like a farmhouse style. Um, Right. So then you do a more modern farmhouse take on it. Right. And you have the designer help you through some of the details of what it's going to look like so that it doesn't clash.
Paul: And then, yeah, you can also work on, I agree with you, like with the views in terms of like some screening or something with not direct views, maybe you set it back as far as possible if you have a big enough lot. So, I mean, there's other things that you can factor into it. And I think that's where the design professional comes in to help you evaluate what's the best play here.
Nick: So what about the interiors, Paul? What are we seeing there?
Paul: Uh, I mean, again, you just have to check all your boxes. You need your, you know, kitchen space, which is like very small, right? It's nothing grand, nothing you're talking like depending on the square footage. But yeah, typically it's going to be a lot smaller.
Paul: The, the, uh, yeah, all of these ADU units, it's like enough for, you know, one to two people to live there comfortably. So, and you don't need a giant kitchen, but because
Nick: of the small square footage, we're, we are seeing higher ceilings. So a lot of times we're seeing nine or 10 foot ceilings for some, especially for some of these prefabs
Paul: or you vault, you do vaulted ceilings, right?
Paul: In the upper space. If you did like a carriage house situation with the lower space, the upper space, you vault the upper area, right? Something like that. And then, um, garages are the other conversion too. So if you have an existing 20 by 20 footprint, so it's basically like two parking spaces and you have to fit in your kitchen, your bathroom, living, dining, you know, bedroom.
Paul: So you fit all that stuff in that box. And then again, maybe you blow the top off. Of your, you know, garage and you, you vault all that so that everything feels open and grand
Nick: unless you want a rooftop terrace for some entertainment, which we've also started to see. Um, I, I know, um, one other thing we're doing is we're not including gas line or gas appliances.
Nick: Uh, we're going all electric for these units just to keep it simplified. Um, keep costs down and also make it a little bit less on the liability side for if it does become a rental property.
Paul: Yeah. Well that in like, um, Again, just like efficiency to, uh, you have, it's maybe you want to do like some solar panels on there as well.
Paul: Maybe you have a generator backup system, battery backup system in your house, and you can connect off of that and have everything off of your system. Right. So there's different things to consider too. Um, but I mean like my condo in Chicago, we had electric furnace and all that. So it was like, again, just like, For the condo, it was again, a smaller footprint.
Paul: So same, same idea here. And you just want something that's efficient, easy, and it's all in the same system. So everything's electric.
Nick: Yeah. Um, what else are we seeing from a space panning standpoint? Um, probably the larger bedroom. So at least so we can, obviously it was going to be on the smaller side, but large enough to fit a King, right?
Nick: So we have some flexibility for the sleeping quarters. one bedroom. Let's, let's make it count.
Paul: Yeah. And it's usually not, unfortunately, again, just space constraints, usually not connected to a bathroom. It's not a master, you know, primary suite and it doesn't need to be if it's
Nick: just,
Paul: yeah, there's no half bath or anything like that.
Paul: You don't have like a mud room. So again, there's certain things that you know, pantry, you know, there's, Certain things that spatially you basically have to make accommodation for smaller closets or compromises for I should say to be exactly stackable laundry So yeah, I mean like those are all the things so again, it's just think of like a condo in New York condo in Chicago And that's a space like that is basically what you get here and I
Nick: did that for a decade like I love designing a place Chicago apartments in New York city, like it, that was fun for me.
Nick: So it, it's kind of like, it's easy for me to get into this role.
Paul: But like all those things you mentioned, like we had stackable laundry, you know, so like all those things you just ticked through, you know, we didn't have a half bath, you know? So it's like a condo living basically in these accessory dwelling units.
Paul: Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah, I don't know. I mean, with the way housing prices are, this is something I think that just cities need to really, Open up to and make it an easy process. Um, so yeah, I, I definitely applaud LA and everything that they're doing, even their permit process. They've just like smoothed out everything in terms of getting approvals.
Nick: Let's talk about outdoor spaces for these ADUs, um, potentially impacting the main household. Um, I'm, I'm in the camp of trying to add a separate private space for the ADU that's not going to impede with the house, which is sometimes difficult, especially on these small city lots. That's why we've been, we've had a party deck that we've done on top, but we just had, it's, it's fairly simple design.
Nick: You know, we have stairs that go up to the rooftop.
Paul: I think at a minimum you do like a balcony at least. Um, you know, something like that. I agree. Like you should have some outdoor space. It's difficult because if you have a small backyard, um, And you might be taking up, especially if you convert like a garage, you might be sharing like a 10 foot rear yard from the house to the garage.
Paul: And so like, that's it. That's the space. And
Nick: listen, that's okay. If you're using this for, as an extension of your own home, like for a home office or for a mother in law suite or, or, you know, guest house, um, that that's fine. We can share this backyard, this area and have access to that. I think having that balcony or that, That's a private specific to that unit gives you a little more flexibility down the road.
Nick: If you may want to pivot and have that be a solely a separate rental, that's not going to necessarily interact with the main household.
Paul: Yeah. I mean there's other things you can do too. You can put up privacy screening, you know, put up like a wall and have some. Some vines or something growing on and if you want some green or, or you just leave it as like a privacy wall, right?
Paul: Something like some nice cedar or whatever to basically help screen. Um, and then you can have just a small little enough for like two chairs and like small little fire pit or something or a grill station and that's it. It's all it is. Right. So again, like think efficiency, like everything is down to a smaller size, even like your outdoor space.
Paul: It's going to be a small patio, two chairs and like a grilling station done. Yep. So, but yeah, I agree. Like. I think if you have, can fit in a space like that, great. And obviously it just depends on your lot and depends on, you know, if it makes sense or not. Yeah. Um, we did three different site plans for a project in Whitehall, three projects in Whitehall and based on where the existing house was.
Paul: And, um, these weren't ADUs, but these were garages. But again, like based on where they had built the house, Having the garage location really impacted the size of the backyard. Yeah. Just was not possible to, to have really a nice backyard. The front yard was great because they set these houses back so far.
Nick: Well, they
Paul: wanted to maintain
Nick: the street and the curb appeal. So they have these setbacks for the front yard that everyone needs to follow.
Paul: Well, that was the odd thing about those projects though. Cause technically they could have gone like 20 feet closer to the front now, but for whatever, anyway, but again, thinking about these ADU situations, that homeowner who's in that house that we did this garage for maybe down the road, they want to do an ADU.
Paul: Well, again, just based on everything the way it worked out, they're going to have a really small backyard. So, you know, a lot of these things you just have to look at. And a lot of, again, a lot of it's all existing, the community's existing houses existing, and you just have to look at it. They're all unique.
Paul: You have to look at what you have and factor that into your design. Every project is.
Nick: That's why I, I mean, you can shop for inspiration online. But really what you need to consult a design professional and be thoughtful on how you pursue some of these additions to your home.
Paul: Yeah. I, you know, I think it's a different story when you have like a new build development.
Paul: So, you know, again, when we're talking about these ADUs, um, even for us to come in and you know, our process, we scan and document all the existing conditions a certain way because you have those constraints that you have to work with and design around. And if you're not thoughtful to the existing conditions, you're going to get something that's an eyesore or just doesn't make sense.
Nick: Yep.
Paul: I
Nick: have seen the cost of these apartment appliances come down a little bit. Remember back in the day, these smaller, like odd, odd sized refrigerators were so, so expensive. And now I feel like the, the market's kind of meeting us a little bit halfway.
Paul: I think back to our college days, like we had like, that was really small.
Nick: Yeah, that was too small. I know.
Paul: I know. But I'm just saying like, that's cause I've never lived like even again, back to, Back to Chicago, which is probably the unit I lived in that's most relatable to these ADUs, we had a full size fridge. So in New York, I think we had a 30 inch. Well, New York is a bit of a different animal than Chicago.
Paul: Chicago's a little more space. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You were in the one. You were what? Upper West side or upper? You were by close to the park, right? Yeah. That was a shoe box. Sorry. I love that place. It was great for location. Location was fantastic. Few of the other
Nick: items. Yeah. No, we turned our hallway, our, our wide hallway into the.
Nick: Or the owner did rather they converted the large wide hallway into the living room kitchen area and turned the Kitchen into like a second bedroom and like yeah, just really try to squeeze everything out of it
Paul: Yeah, New York is a little bit of a different animal I mean, but so you went from was that you did you go from that place to your place over in Queens?
Paul: Yeah
Nick: Well, we rented in Queens first before we ended up buying.
Paul: Okay, okay. So anyway, I just remember how small that apartment was though when you were in Manhattan. Yeah. When you went to Queens and finally bought your property, you had some outdoor space. Was that a game changer? It wasn't much. Life changing.
Nick: Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Paul: Yeah.
Nick: Yeah,
Paul: everyone's like,
Nick: you're rich. You got a dishwasher and a 10 by 10 patio. Oh my
Paul: goodness. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I remember you guys were just thrilled with the, especially having that outdoor space. No, I could have stayed there. Um, but we got a knock on the door and offer. We
Nick: couldn't refuse.
Paul: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but anyway, yeah. Your appliance sizes that you mentioned, right. I've never experienced appliances, but college was the only time when it was that really small refrigerator. They
Nick: have some really nice, like smeg makes some really cool, smaller fridges. I mean, these are, these are taller.
Nick: Full height fridges, maybe even taller than that, but they're just skinny, right? So maybe even they're 24 inches wide, but they're just these super tall. So you can still put some stuff in there, not made for a family of five or four, but you're, you're also, you're in an apartment, right? One or two bedrooms.
Nick: Yeah.
Paul: I, yeah. Again, all of these things are always one or two people. Yeah. That's it. So, yeah. And yeah, I wish I had something like this for me. It's the privacy thing, right? From, so if I have family come in, they get their own space. I get my own space. Yeah. So,
Nick: so what, what happens when these ADUs are, where we can't do a separate, you know, dwelling where we have to do this addition.
Nick: So this project that we're getting into right now is really exciting. Um, we, we, we have to have it attached. How are we going to be thoughtful to create
Paul: that privacy there? Yeah. I mean, Doris. Doors are going to be king, right? So you think about the access point from the existing to the new, um, obviously if you have like an existing mudroom hallway situation, that's where your connection point should be, where if you can come into a common mudroom area and then branch off left and right, great.
Paul: There's a wall and a door on each side. You come into the common entry and left and right done. Um, so it all depends. I know we did a house in Upper Arlington, um, which they finished. We actually have some pictures, I think, on our website of that one as well. Yeah, that turned out great. And that was basically this mother in law suite, um, and you came down a staircase and then it was kind of like on the backside of the kitchen.
Paul: And so, but then it was like you came into a kitchen that was also adjacent to a kitchen and they didn't have stuff, doorways and stuff, but the way you kind of meandered through, it still gave enough privacy in the living room, dining kitchen area. And then the stairs up to the, you know, the sleeping area was often the backside to where, you know, it created enough separation.
Paul: So even then, they still
Nick: had common spaces between, you know, the main home and that They
Paul: had enough like bleeding over, but there was enough meandering and where you located the different elements offered enough privacy. And in this particular
Nick: case, we also shared a lot of outdoor amenities too, which, which is what the client wanted.
Nick: Yeah. So I like to be mindful on Shared space, but I think something shared space. Yeah.
Paul: But I think something like, that's okay,
Nick: right? Yeah, I do too. I'm, well, I mean, I, I wanna force that interaction, right? So we can, we can force, you know, uh, activation through our, with architecture, but I also wanna have that private space for somebody.
Nick: Like, what if you just want a coffee by yourself? What if I just wanna get away from everybody else that I'm connected to and just have a moment for me?
Paul: Yeah. Yeah. So some, sometimes you have too many moments. It's all right. I have, I have moments too deep, deep down. Yeah. Yeah. But, um, yeah, that was, that was also a great project.
Paul: Um, and again, it didn't have doorways that block stuff off and everything bled into each other, but there was privacy that was created. So it's, it's all this dance that again, you get into the existing condition, you assess everything. And then you put pen to paper to try to figure out the best solution.
Nick: And quite frankly, I'm, I look to the coast a lot. We see a lot of innovation there that eventually makes its way to the Midwest. Um, so I always have my eye on New York, LA and what's going on there to how to make these smaller spaces more efficient. more functional, um, but also more private to like kind of there's just a flexibility depending on where we're at in our lives and what we're going to use that space for.
Nick: Right. And then there's the iterations we go through with our clients specific to them in the moment too, that we have to be mindful of.
Paul: Yeah. I think the, um, if I recall, it's, it's funny you say you, you look to the coast sometime. I think the inspiration from the carriage house that was in Victorian village actually came from like a pre approved, um, Um, L.
Paul: A. A. D. U. Unit. Yeah, so
Nick: you remember the triplex we designed? I was looking at, um, housing, uh, multi family units in Oregon and Washington and Seattle, uh, Portland areas. And they designed these triplexes to look like an actual single family home.
Paul: Yeah, like a house instead of this three
Nick: unit behemoth to preserve, preserve the landscape of the street, but, but offer now three dwelling units instead of a single family.
Paul: Yeah. Well, and again, it can, existing conditions, it's, it's the, you know, the pain point that we have to deal with. Um, Yeah. I think the lot that he had was just super narrow. Yeah. So immediately that constraint, you couldn't have this big unit that was like spread across the slot. You had to constrain it to this like 20 foot wide footprint and that's all you could build on.
Paul: And we just stacked them one, two, three. Yep. So,
Nick: and again, and in that particular case, smaller units, just like 80 years, those tall ceilings made all the difference. You walk in and because of, you know, a nine foot ceiling, you're not feeling claustrophobic. So we want to make sure we're definitely, um, thinking about the experience when you're in that space, especially if it's on the smaller side.
Paul: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and all of these are going to be on the smaller side, right? You know, none of these are going to be, unless you have like, um, Acreage, you know, if you have acreage down in Hawking, then you can do whatever you want. Well, even then, I
Nick: mean, even then we have our process with septic and roadways and electric and yeah, all those things that we have to be mindful of.
Paul: Yeah. You're doing mirror houses there, right? Which are tiny. It's almost like a ADU unit, 20 by 10, 11 by 21. That'd be interesting. Do you think someone would put a mirror house in their backyard? Um, Cause it has everything, right? It has a bathroom, has a small little kitchen area, bedroom, living room.
Paul: Someone could buy one of
Nick: those and just plop it down, right? The allure of a mirror house is floor to ceiling windows, right? With privacy, cause it's reflected on the outside. And if you're like in the woods, in our case, down there, that's an experience, that's amazing. But in your backyard, I don't know, I feel like
Paul: Your neighbors
Nick: would never
Paul: see it,
Nick: they
Paul: would be
Nick: camouflaged.
Nick: Correct. Kind of. Let's try it. Let's try it and see how it goes. Um, it might be a little more off putting in somebody's backyard than in the forest. That, yeah, I don't think that's a great idea. I'm just having
Paul: fun with the conversation. Okay.
Nick: For our, for our listeners, if, if we're thinking about an ADU, what would be the first steps?
Nick: Like, do, can we call our design professional, have a conversation about what our options are? Like what's our timeline behind this? What's our, what's, what's this going to cost us? Yeah.
Paul: So, So you should anticipate a long timeline period because again, things are not open and free to do whatever. So that's number one.
Paul: And then, yeah, I think you start with the conversation of, Hey, here's the location of the, the project. Here's the house and the site. What's the possibilities. And that's just the very first conversation out of the
Nick: gate. So give me, give me a little bit more than a long timeline,
Paul: like a
Nick: year. Okay. I mean, do you want specific year?
Nick: I think you're being very conservative there because that was the, that was the commission that we went through.
Paul: I think we can get a, I still, it's a long timeline. I think it's going to be a little less than that. All right. Well, the next one we get, we'll have to take a bet. So I'll buy you a drink if I'm right, or sorry, if you're right, and if I'm right, then you buy me a drink.
Paul: We'll have to, we'll bet on it. Those stakes are low, Paul. Well, all right. What do you want to bet? It's not like I'm going to buy a new car or something. No risk, no
Nick: reward.
Paul: Yeah. I
Nick: mean, maybe it's conservative. Sure. Sure. Sure. But. You play it you're playing it safe, which is fine I think we can probably do a little faster and I think as we get closer to these policy changes in Columbus Because of what we're saying.
Nick: Yeah, actually, I think it's gonna get easier and easier
Paul: I think the thing to know is that there are hoops to jump through. It's not a Process that is taking a week or two Or so, right. It's just, it's a long drawn out process. So be in, be in it from the beginning and be ready from it from the beginning.
Paul: That's going to be a long process, whether it's four months, six months, eight months or 12, it's a long process. And again, like, yeah, we can do, we can knock something out quickly, but Some of it's out of our control when it gets to the city and the city and their process and what they want to see and what they want documented.
Paul: It's just, it's just them being them. So if this process is so long, what
Nick: are we talking about expense wise?
Paul: Um, for us again, that doesn't impact our, like you're talking about costs for us to do it. It doesn't impact our cost dramatically because again, a lot of it, we send it to them, they take their sweet time to review it, you know, and then once they're done reviewing it, they send it back to us with some comments and then we jump in for a few hours here or there, make whatever updates, go back to them maybe with another meeting.
Paul: So our time, yeah, there's a little bit of additional time, but it's not like we're working on it for six months straight.
Nick: I
Paul: agree.
Nick: Yeah, you are correct there.
Paul: Yeah. So like maybe you add, add, you know, 10 to 20 hours to a project to like get something like this approved. Um, and if you're starting with our base base price for a project like this where you're doing like a small new build project, again, adding 10 20 hours is not a huge amount of time or money that you're adding to your project.
Paul: And when
Nick: you're in a neighborhood like Victorian village and you're adding a, an entire house, an additional dwelling to the property, you're talking about a big. Um, increase in value in terms of what it's costing you to what the payoff is. Yeah.
Paul: If you can add 100, 000 in value to your property, 150, 000 a lot more than that, depending on where, obviously, right.
Paul: Depends on the location, but easily you could add that. So if you're paying, you know, 10 percent of that for the whole design process and approval process, I think less or less. I mean, like I think it's worth it, you know, in terms of like the value you get out of it and what you pay to get it done and to, to build it, you know, what's the cost to build it.
Paul: Do you think this is, this is more a question for you?
Nick: Yeah. And honestly it's been varying depending on a lot of factors. If we're going up to levels with parking below because garages, you know, you're going to want 10 foot ceilings in your garages. So, you know, we have to, there's a lot of additional things to think about there, but it depends on the build.
Nick: But usually, you know, you're looking, if it's just a
Paul: 20, 20 by 20. So what do we do in the Victorian village here? This was what? The apartment above. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was the apartment above. Was it 25 by 25? I think it was like 20 by 20 by 25, something like that. Yeah. 20 by 25. Yeah. So again, basically like a garage on the lower level, the unit above.
Paul: What do you think? Something like that would cost. I was talking
Nick: with the contractor and uh, we're, I think we're on the 200 to 250 mark depending on how we do with the finishes. But
Paul: because of the location, the value added and having the additional unit and additional income, just the property value alone.
Paul: It's adding about three 50.
Yeah. Yeah.
Paul: So, you know, the money he's putting in, he's going to get out of, and again, that's like now, so that's not even factoring in five years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now, what this is going to be worth when, when maybe he decides, okay, now it's time to sell.
Paul: And you're just talking about value. You're not talking about the cashflow potential. I'm not even talking about the cashflow during that time, having cashflow from that additional unit. Uh, I'm not even talking about that. I'm just talking about the property value itself. Cause you're the owner, you own the land.
Paul: Right. Yeah. So for me, that's like the wow moment, you know? Yeah. So yeah. To pay your design professional for the 10 extra hours it's going to take to go through this process and get your approval. I think hands down, it does not make sense to say, no, I'd rather do something different. You know? No, I agree.
Paul: So, or no, I want to avoid the process cause it's going to cost me another thousand bucks or whatever, 2000 bucks. You know, it's like, it's like, come on, 10 to 20 hours, let's do the time. And 10 years from now, you're going to have something that, you know, it's just the value you add is just, why would you not do it?
Nick: Yeah, I agree completely. Um, any other concerns about this? Uh, any last topics we want to cover before we wrap this up?
Paul: I think we covered, you know, the parking, the character, the community. Um, I think we covered a lot of it. Don't put a mirror house in your backyard. I was joking before.
Nick: We could try it out.
Nick: We'd be curious to see how that works out. I mean, if you really
Paul: want to. Your neighbors are your neighbors. That's not on us. So, but I would probably advise against it in most locations. Unless, again, maybe you're in the woods and it's this experience. Makes a little more sense versus in the backyard of a Victorian village area or adjacent to Victoria Victorian village wouldn't allow it That's for sure.
Nick: Well, we can dive into that topic a little bit more when we have our episode about our property. Yeah Yeah, so okay. Well with that we're gonna wrap this up if you guys have any questions about ad use regulations, please put it in the show notes below and we'll Respond to those inquiries.
Paul: Do you think we can do a link to like, um, uh, maybe some images or something of, uh, some of the edu's that we've done?
Nick: Absolutely.
Paul: Some, something like that. Like maybe we'll put together a PDF that has just a couple of, uh, the images for the Victorian village project we did. Um, so yeah, maybe we can do that and we'll link to the article that we read through. Um, just that spawned this, you know, again, we've done a few projects like this, but, um, the one that kind of spawned the conversation.
Paul: So we'll put links to all that up there, um, you know, for you guys to take a look at.
Nick: Um, yeah, Danny, we'll put a link for that. And, um, again, I think that's going to wrap us up here. Nino, you're lucky it's your birthday, you know, happy birthday, happy birthday. I hope you're enjoying yourself. Um, we're going to have to.
Paul: He sent pictures of that. That was thing was like a fricking ADO. There's an interesting design. He'll have to tell us about it on the next, uh, podcast. We'll, uh, we'll tackle them then. Yeah. If he, if he shows up, yeah. Tackle him with what hugs and love. That's
Nick: right.
Paul: Yeah.
Nick: All right, well, we'll wrap up there.
Nick: Um, thanks for joining us and we'll see you again in two weeks.
Paul: This has been the ARCfluence podcast. As always, you can get more information and additional content on arcfluence. com. Please subscribe on the platform of your choice and leave us a review. We'd love to hear from you.
Nick: Well, that concludes episode 17 and we'll see you guys in two weeks. Until then, take care of yourself.
Understanding Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) are secondary residential units built on the same property as an existing home. They can take various forms, including basement apartments, garage conversions, freestanding structures, or even carriage houses. With housing shortages and high property costs on the rise, ADUs offer an affordable solution by utilizing existing land and infrastructure. These units are not only practical but can serve multiple purposes—from generating rental income to providing extra space for family members or a home office.
Types of ADUs and Their Applications
ADUs can vary significantly in terms of design and functionality. Here are the most common types:
- Basement Apartments: Often equipped with a separate entrance, basement ADUs can provide privacy and independence for both the homeowner and tenant.
- Garage Conversions: Homeowners can convert detached or attached garages into living spaces. Some prefer tearing down the garage to build a new carriage house or a modern studio apartment on the same footprint.
- Freestanding Units: These units are small, standalone structures placed in the backyard. They are versatile and can be used for rental income, as home offices, or for family accommodations.
The adaptability of ADUs makes them an attractive option for homeowners who need extra space but don’t want to undergo major renovations. ADUs can be designed for long-term tenants, Airbnb rentals, family members, or even for aging parents as part of a multigenerational living arrangement.
The Legal Landscape and Zoning Challenges
Zoning regulations play a significant role in whether ADUs can be added to a property. In the U.S., restrictions vary widely by city and state. While cities like Los Angeles have eased their ADU regulations to tackle housing shortages, other cities remain more restrictive. For example, homeowners in Columbus may face a lengthy approval process that involves neighborhood commissions and strict zoning laws.
In Los Angeles, the city embraced ADUs by changing its laws in 2017 to allow homeowners to add ADUs more easily. Since then, many other cities have considered similar initiatives. However, homeowners should be prepared for a time-consuming process when applying for ADU permits, especially in historic neighborhoods with additional architectural guidelines. Despite these challenges, cities are beginning to recognize the importance of ADUs and may continue to relax regulations as housing demands grow.
Design Considerations for ADUs
When adding an ADU, design plays a crucial role in ensuring that the new structure complements the main home and fits into the existing neighborhood. Here are some common design considerations:
- Matching Architectural Style: To maintain neighborhood aesthetics, many ADUs are designed to match the main home’s style. This approach helps the unit blend seamlessly into its surroundings.
- Efficient Use of Space: ADUs are often small, so maximizing space is key. High ceilings, multi-functional furniture, and efficient storage solutions can make a small space feel larger and more comfortable.
- Privacy: For ADUs intended for tenants or guests, privacy is essential. Design strategies such as private entrances, balconies, and screening elements can ensure both the main home and the ADU have separate, private spaces.
Working with a design professional can make a significant difference in planning an ADU. They can help navigate zoning regulations, optimize the layout, and ensure the final design aligns with both practical needs and aesthetic preferences.
Costs and Benefits of Building an ADU
Building an ADU represents a substantial investment, but it can pay off in various ways. The initial construction costs can vary depending on factors like the type of ADU, location, and materials used. For instance, a garage conversion may be less costly than building a new freestanding unit from scratch.
Despite the upfront costs, ADUs can significantly increase property value, particularly in urban areas with high real estate prices. In addition to boosting property value, ADUs also offer the potential for rental income, which can help offset mortgage payments or serve as a reliable revenue stream. Furthermore, an ADU can enhance the property’s flexibility, making it more attractive to future buyers who may value the additional space.
Future of ADUs and Their Impact on Housing
ADUs are an innovative solution to many challenges faced in today’s housing market. As cities continue to grapple with population growth, limited space, and rising housing costs, ADUs are likely to become more common and more integrated into urban planning. Cities like Columbus are actively considering zoning changes to accommodate the growing interest in ADUs, and cities with existing ADU-friendly policies are seeing increased adoption.
While ADUs are not a one-size-fits-all solution, they offer flexibility, functionality, and financial benefits for homeowners willing to invest the time and resources. As more cities adjust their regulations, ADUs may become a more accessible and sustainable way to meet housing needs and create new opportunities for property owners.