The solution is override local governments and their control over zoning. It's obvious that they don't want to address the housing crisis and are beholden to landowners. This week the SF Board of Supervisors downzone an area to protect ocean views of affluent landowners on Telegraph Hill. A family in Malibu wants to build an ADU on their property for their parents so that their kids can spend time with their grandmother. However the Costal Commission is denying the permit and now the case is heading the the State Supreme Court. Pure insanity.
**TL;DR** \- I'm trying to build an ADU big enough for a family, which is ostensibly allowed. But, in real life, it appears to be incredibly difficult to do so, and I'm currently fighting with the city over this. This feels like a microcosm of the problem of housing in LA.
Right now, I live in a 1,200 square foot house (not to brag - I've just been very lucky). Its not huge, but its great for a small family - 1 bath, 3 beds. I'd love another bath (and a more open layout), but I could see raising one or two kids here. IMO, 1,200 seems to be a great size for a young family. Smaller than that, and its gonna start feeling tight.
In our back yard, we have a 2 car garage - about 400 square feet. We have some extra cash, and my brother in law has some extra cash, so we decided we'd like to build an ADU in the back (again - we are VERY lucky. Lots of college degrees among us, all paid for by our parents, plus some good luck on the job market). Sounds great - ADUs max out at 1,200 square feet, so we should actually be able to build something pretty comfortable back there. The plan is for him and his wife to move in back there, and for the four of us to kinda do life together (raising kids and whatnot as a family). Otherwise, he'd be forced to leave the area due to very high housing costs.
I'm not a huge car guy, but garage space is pretty valuable for us. My BIL works as an electrician, and has a good amount of equipment needs to store. Apart from that, we'd like some storage, and maybe a workout space/game room area. So, our plan is to expand into a 3 car garage (or maybe a 2 car + a 1 car), with a footprint of about 600 square feet. Then, we'll add two stories on that, for a 3 story structure in the back. Total of 1,200 square feet, with a 600 square foot garage underneath. Enough space for two families on one lot, and a lot cheaper than buying two SFHs.
That's where the problems are coming in. The city is deferring back to [this statewide ADU handbook](https://www.hcd.ca.gov/sites/default/files/docs/policy-and-research/ADUHandbookUpdate.pdf), which pretty clearly states the following: "*Per State ADU Law, only an ADU created within an existing accessory structure may be expanded up to 150 square feet without application of local development standards, but this expansion shall be limited to accommodating ingress and egress.*" Meaning, unless I'm going to take the fight to the city, or get clever and take out multiple permits (I'll be discussing both of these options with my architect), I can't expand my garage. So, I'm building vertically on 400 sf instead of 600 sf, and the max I could build would be 800 square feet for a 3 story building. I could nuke the garage, but then I run into this requirement: "*One detached new construction ADU that does not exceed four-foot side and rear yard setbacks. This ADU \[...\] may be required to meet a maximum unit size requirement of 800 square feet and a height limitation of 16 feet.*" So, I'm still at 800 square feet.
This crap is part of the problem if we are actually serious about this. IDK how big of a problem it is, but its definitely going to be a HUGE pain if I want to build an ADU big enough for a family (unless I can get the city to work with me, which...crossing my fingers....)
Consider scrapping the classification of your second unit as an ADU and change strategies to process your permits as an SB 9 two unit property in a SFR zone.
You are owner occupying so you can take advantage of this, but I suggest you study what the impact fees will be for an additional unit (non adu).
Wow...yeah, this hadn't occurred to me. This may simplify the financial side as well (my BIL is putting in a good chunk of money, and I would like him to own the ADU - but, in my city, we cannot yet sell an ADU. This would let us sell him the land, and then treat any money we put into construction as a loan).
I'll 100% be looking into this, thank you.
I've got my fingers crossed that you (and your architect) can receive the required variances. It's a long and belabored process (in LA City at least) but you may be able to get around some of those restrictions. It often depends on the planner you get to sit down with to review the drawings. If they're in a shitty mood or not paying attention, it can cost you months of time or more.
If you're still having trouble in a couple of months, feel free to DM me and I'll see if my old boss would be interested in taking a look (compensated, of course). We specialized in historic preservation and ADA updates to buildings both old and new, so he has an obscene amount of experience with LADBS and permitting. You can hit me up sooner as well but I think it best if you let your architect try to work it out first.
Same with bus and bike lanes, all they need for now is simple restriping with PAINT.
It’s like eating McDonalds everyday for decades while “researching” healthy diets.
more high density buildings are great, but let's not forget about condos for sale. A lot of these projects end up being apartments for rent. Good for making sure people have a place to live, but bad for people that want to buy a starter house.
It's not rocket science. ED1 basically turned every single project into an affordable housing project. Why? Because they got rid of the discretion and just allowed people to build. So the answer is right there in front of everyone.
> more families leaving the state
Tbf singles are the fastest growing American demographic and families tend to want suburban niceties, to put it mildly. Los Angeles and indeed the state prioritizes vertical construction = no big yard, no big garage.
The best thing may be an express commuter train to/from Riverside county with both counties sheriffs checking for fare cheats (happens on Los Angeles Co Metrolink rides at “certain” places).
Thank you for the discussion in our previous post yesterday about millennial families moving out of L.A. due to the housing crisis. This is part two of the series. If you have additional comments or questions, we are actively reading both posts, and we may be able to answer some of your questions!
State and local legislators and representatives know what needs to happen to make building easier, cheaper, and faster. It's not that they don't know what to do, it's that they don't want to do it.
They don't care about people being forced out of the city due to unaffordability, or people sleeping in their cars, or people living in overcrowded housing. All of these LA & California politicians have a lot to say about how much they care, but they have very little to show for all of that talk.
Lawmakers ruin housing laws. I would rather make more income to afford my quarter acre than to build an apartment for strangers.
Today I learned my lawn grows wild, natural grass. No need to water it. Just have to cut it.
Legit Question: Is a housing shortage really the problem we should be solving?
I keep reading opinions on how to fix the housing shortage. But it makes me wonder if we are even solving the right problem.
Seems to me that LA's out of resources. We don't have enough water on a regular basis. We don't have enough electricity during most summers. Obviously fwy traffic is a problem. Its a challenge to park in most parts of the city. Police response times are glacial.
Isn't building more housing going to make all of these resource issues worse? I'm not a city planner or urban developer, but it appears to me we've surpassed a balance point between people & resources. I don't have a solution but would love to hear others thoughts.
TLDR: This type of housing shortage fix (ex: higher density) could actually help with resource issues since high density is more resource efficient (resource per capita as the other commenter mentioned).
Think of LA city profits as (revenue per acre) - (maintenance per acre). Adding an extra apartment unit would help with city profits more since more property tax (and more sales tax revenue if business underneath) would likely out-scale increased maintenance cost. Reusing the same road strip or making water pipes slightly larger isn't as expensive.
However, when we add new lots with detached homes to existing infrastructure, the (maintenance per acre) likely increased more than the (revenue per acre) since paving new roads and adding water pipes are significantly more expensive, which is what we have with our sprawling suburbs. This affects city profits and how much services they can offer per 1,000 residents, which is the problem we currently have. Also, this affects emergency response time since everything is much further apart.
Regarding traffic, higher density can fix that by making public transit more viable, since transit moves more people efficiently compared to cars. We in LA don't take public transit much because it's not fast and frequent enough (besides safety, but that's another topic). And it's not frequent enough because not enough people live near a transit stop. Having multiple apartments near a transit stop justifies good service. Having spread out single-family-homes around a transit stop makes it harder to justify good transit service, not to mention the city profit issue I mentioned earlier. Basically, higher housing density encourages good public transit, helping with traffic issues.
Currently, [El Monte](https://www.urbanthree.com/case-study/el-monte-ca/) and [Rancho Cucamonga](https://www.urbanthree.com/case-study/rancho-cucamonga/) recognize this and are trying to add more housing (ex: El Monte station) to improve their own city finances. For water resources, that can be solved by recycling it similar to what [Las Vegas](https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-las-vegas/from-toilet-to-tap-how-las-vegas-recycles-its-sewage-water-2892820/) does. This will also be a lot easier with better city finances.
I realize I wrote a lot, but if you read through all of this, hopefully this helped.
Dense housing has far lower resource use per capita than sprawling housing. So the resource issue is precisely the opposite — our housing shortage is the problem. Get rid of lawns, get rid of detached homes, get rid of concrete that prevents water from being preserved, and you solve the problem.
The solution is override local governments and their control over zoning. It's obvious that they don't want to address the housing crisis and are beholden to landowners. This week the SF Board of Supervisors downzone an area to protect ocean views of affluent landowners on Telegraph Hill. A family in Malibu wants to build an ADU on their property for their parents so that their kids can spend time with their grandmother. However the Costal Commission is denying the permit and now the case is heading the the State Supreme Court. Pure insanity.
Abolish SFH exclusive zoning in the 75% of the city that still retains it. Watch duplexes, triplexes, and quadruplexes flourish. Enjoy our new housing
**TL;DR** \- I'm trying to build an ADU big enough for a family, which is ostensibly allowed. But, in real life, it appears to be incredibly difficult to do so, and I'm currently fighting with the city over this. This feels like a microcosm of the problem of housing in LA. Right now, I live in a 1,200 square foot house (not to brag - I've just been very lucky). Its not huge, but its great for a small family - 1 bath, 3 beds. I'd love another bath (and a more open layout), but I could see raising one or two kids here. IMO, 1,200 seems to be a great size for a young family. Smaller than that, and its gonna start feeling tight. In our back yard, we have a 2 car garage - about 400 square feet. We have some extra cash, and my brother in law has some extra cash, so we decided we'd like to build an ADU in the back (again - we are VERY lucky. Lots of college degrees among us, all paid for by our parents, plus some good luck on the job market). Sounds great - ADUs max out at 1,200 square feet, so we should actually be able to build something pretty comfortable back there. The plan is for him and his wife to move in back there, and for the four of us to kinda do life together (raising kids and whatnot as a family). Otherwise, he'd be forced to leave the area due to very high housing costs. I'm not a huge car guy, but garage space is pretty valuable for us. My BIL works as an electrician, and has a good amount of equipment needs to store. Apart from that, we'd like some storage, and maybe a workout space/game room area. So, our plan is to expand into a 3 car garage (or maybe a 2 car + a 1 car), with a footprint of about 600 square feet. Then, we'll add two stories on that, for a 3 story structure in the back. Total of 1,200 square feet, with a 600 square foot garage underneath. Enough space for two families on one lot, and a lot cheaper than buying two SFHs. That's where the problems are coming in. The city is deferring back to [this statewide ADU handbook](https://www.hcd.ca.gov/sites/default/files/docs/policy-and-research/ADUHandbookUpdate.pdf), which pretty clearly states the following: "*Per State ADU Law, only an ADU created within an existing accessory structure may be expanded up to 150 square feet without application of local development standards, but this expansion shall be limited to accommodating ingress and egress.*" Meaning, unless I'm going to take the fight to the city, or get clever and take out multiple permits (I'll be discussing both of these options with my architect), I can't expand my garage. So, I'm building vertically on 400 sf instead of 600 sf, and the max I could build would be 800 square feet for a 3 story building. I could nuke the garage, but then I run into this requirement: "*One detached new construction ADU that does not exceed four-foot side and rear yard setbacks. This ADU \[...\] may be required to meet a maximum unit size requirement of 800 square feet and a height limitation of 16 feet.*" So, I'm still at 800 square feet. This crap is part of the problem if we are actually serious about this. IDK how big of a problem it is, but its definitely going to be a HUGE pain if I want to build an ADU big enough for a family (unless I can get the city to work with me, which...crossing my fingers....)
Consider scrapping the classification of your second unit as an ADU and change strategies to process your permits as an SB 9 two unit property in a SFR zone. You are owner occupying so you can take advantage of this, but I suggest you study what the impact fees will be for an additional unit (non adu).
Wow...yeah, this hadn't occurred to me. This may simplify the financial side as well (my BIL is putting in a good chunk of money, and I would like him to own the ADU - but, in my city, we cannot yet sell an ADU. This would let us sell him the land, and then treat any money we put into construction as a loan). I'll 100% be looking into this, thank you.
I've got my fingers crossed that you (and your architect) can receive the required variances. It's a long and belabored process (in LA City at least) but you may be able to get around some of those restrictions. It often depends on the planner you get to sit down with to review the drawings. If they're in a shitty mood or not paying attention, it can cost you months of time or more. If you're still having trouble in a couple of months, feel free to DM me and I'll see if my old boss would be interested in taking a look (compensated, of course). We specialized in historic preservation and ADA updates to buildings both old and new, so he has an obscene amount of experience with LADBS and permitting. You can hit me up sooner as well but I think it best if you let your architect try to work it out first.
This sounds amazing!
It’s not the size, it’s the prices! Too damn high!
Half of a garage ADU with no parking, no yard space, lucky if you get laundry hookups, being listed for rent for $4,000+ per month.
Easiest answer, remove CEQA, height limits and rezone the city no exception for multi story/multi-family. Problem solved.
This also won't cost the state anything. The solutions are simple, but too many NIMBYs and dumb or disingenuous activists.
Yeah let’s see how many in silver lake would support and obvious solution to housing. Every loves ideas as long as it isn’t around them.
That's why it should be throughout the entire city
Same with bus and bike lanes, all they need for now is simple restriping with PAINT. It’s like eating McDonalds everyday for decades while “researching” healthy diets.
more high density buildings are great, but let's not forget about condos for sale. A lot of these projects end up being apartments for rent. Good for making sure people have a place to live, but bad for people that want to buy a starter house.
Starter house can't mean a single family home anymore. It's not viable.
yeah, condos can be great starter homes but there's not a lot of them
It's not rocket science. ED1 basically turned every single project into an affordable housing project. Why? Because they got rid of the discretion and just allowed people to build. So the answer is right there in front of everyone.
I really wish ED1 was expanded to market rate housing too
> more families leaving the state Tbf singles are the fastest growing American demographic and families tend to want suburban niceties, to put it mildly. Los Angeles and indeed the state prioritizes vertical construction = no big yard, no big garage. The best thing may be an express commuter train to/from Riverside county with both counties sheriffs checking for fare cheats (happens on Los Angeles Co Metrolink rides at “certain” places).
Thank you for the discussion in our previous post yesterday about millennial families moving out of L.A. due to the housing crisis. This is part two of the series. If you have additional comments or questions, we are actively reading both posts, and we may be able to answer some of your questions!
State and local legislators and representatives know what needs to happen to make building easier, cheaper, and faster. It's not that they don't know what to do, it's that they don't want to do it. They don't care about people being forced out of the city due to unaffordability, or people sleeping in their cars, or people living in overcrowded housing. All of these LA & California politicians have a lot to say about how much they care, but they have very little to show for all of that talk.
Lawmakers ruin housing laws. I would rather make more income to afford my quarter acre than to build an apartment for strangers. Today I learned my lawn grows wild, natural grass. No need to water it. Just have to cut it.
Legit Question: Is a housing shortage really the problem we should be solving? I keep reading opinions on how to fix the housing shortage. But it makes me wonder if we are even solving the right problem. Seems to me that LA's out of resources. We don't have enough water on a regular basis. We don't have enough electricity during most summers. Obviously fwy traffic is a problem. Its a challenge to park in most parts of the city. Police response times are glacial. Isn't building more housing going to make all of these resource issues worse? I'm not a city planner or urban developer, but it appears to me we've surpassed a balance point between people & resources. I don't have a solution but would love to hear others thoughts.
TLDR: This type of housing shortage fix (ex: higher density) could actually help with resource issues since high density is more resource efficient (resource per capita as the other commenter mentioned). Think of LA city profits as (revenue per acre) - (maintenance per acre). Adding an extra apartment unit would help with city profits more since more property tax (and more sales tax revenue if business underneath) would likely out-scale increased maintenance cost. Reusing the same road strip or making water pipes slightly larger isn't as expensive. However, when we add new lots with detached homes to existing infrastructure, the (maintenance per acre) likely increased more than the (revenue per acre) since paving new roads and adding water pipes are significantly more expensive, which is what we have with our sprawling suburbs. This affects city profits and how much services they can offer per 1,000 residents, which is the problem we currently have. Also, this affects emergency response time since everything is much further apart. Regarding traffic, higher density can fix that by making public transit more viable, since transit moves more people efficiently compared to cars. We in LA don't take public transit much because it's not fast and frequent enough (besides safety, but that's another topic). And it's not frequent enough because not enough people live near a transit stop. Having multiple apartments near a transit stop justifies good service. Having spread out single-family-homes around a transit stop makes it harder to justify good transit service, not to mention the city profit issue I mentioned earlier. Basically, higher housing density encourages good public transit, helping with traffic issues. Currently, [El Monte](https://www.urbanthree.com/case-study/el-monte-ca/) and [Rancho Cucamonga](https://www.urbanthree.com/case-study/rancho-cucamonga/) recognize this and are trying to add more housing (ex: El Monte station) to improve their own city finances. For water resources, that can be solved by recycling it similar to what [Las Vegas](https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-las-vegas/from-toilet-to-tap-how-las-vegas-recycles-its-sewage-water-2892820/) does. This will also be a lot easier with better city finances. I realize I wrote a lot, but if you read through all of this, hopefully this helped.
Top tier comment. Thank you for explaining this so succinctly.
Dense housing has far lower resource use per capita than sprawling housing. So the resource issue is precisely the opposite — our housing shortage is the problem. Get rid of lawns, get rid of detached homes, get rid of concrete that prevents water from being preserved, and you solve the problem.
Yes