The Controversy Over Accessory Dwelling Units
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 มิ.ย. 2022
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Recently, cities have been reversing course on a long disallowed housing solution. Granny flats, in-law cottages, secondary suites, whatever you call them, they're all 'Accessory Dwelling Units,' or ADU's for short. In cities like Portland OR, Los Angeles, Chicago, NY, and even Ann Arbor MI, ADU's are being allowed by changing zoning laws and ordinances. The hope is that these structures will offer a soft density strategy that can alleviate housing needs without drastically changing the character of our neighborhoods. This video looks closely at the design of an ADU, their history, and some of the questions surrounding this controversial building type.
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It's quite infuriating when you realize there isn't a single housing issue in this country that happened by chance. It's all by design. The game is rigged.
Yes
Yes Donald everything is rigged.
Yes. There is no such thing as unintentional consequences.
@@mjr2451 An unintentional consequence can be intentionally corrected...and yet these issues persist with zero to very little progress being made. We spend billions in foreign aid and yet domestically, affordable housing issues end up in a sea of red tape. Not all of us have the luxury of being gullible enough to believe that these issues are unintentional...especially when there is actual evidence that says otherwise.
"The game is rigged"
Carlin or Wolff reference? 😀
I've been considering an ADU for my mother. She's getting older but still wants to live independently. She currently lives across town which it too far to travel in an emergency. An ADU will put her close enough that I can get to her quickly, but still allow her to retain her independence.
That's my plan with my mom, she's almost 70 and doing fine but eventually I'll have a place with an ADU for her.
Build her a underground studio /bunker cheap , not a eye sore stays same temperature in summer and winter and you can put a soccer field on top of build right
@@leonardoisidoro3224 I can't tell if this is a joke, but I'm sure you would love to be told when you're old and grey that your kids want you to live in a bunker under a soccer field.
One foot in the grave
That's what we figure we will do if any of my husband or my parents need to come live with us
I love the thought of having more family and friends live together while still enjoying their own spaces
My father and I have brittle bones. So we could have family close, he turned her shed into a one bedroom apt....then they added to it to make it a house. As a kid I loved it! I always just walked to Nana's house when my parents made me mad.
@@LegoGirl1990 Having lived completely by myself, in a tiny house on my mom's property, and in the same house as my family... I'll take the tinyhouse/ADU any day. Its all the benefits of living by myself, except way more affordable, and I actually get to see the people I care about. I only hated my family members when we had to share walls, bathrooms, and kitchen space. I've found it helped everyone learn how boundaries worked when we had our own adjacent living spaces, rather than one giant shared one.
@@LegoGirl1990 It is how we lived for most of history before being convinced to section off to lonely single family homes without our community.
Or impromptu babysitting
Multigenerational housing is very common in many parts of the world. The ability to share makes things more affordable, but it also takes compromises that not everyone is able to make.
In Japan, where I live, houses decrease in value like any other purchase. Land retains its value, but because houses are less of an investment, there's less incentive to prevent changes to the neighborhoods. In some ways this is great, like the many mixed-use and mixed income neighborhoods. In my neighborhood there are multi-family units, apartments ranging from $300-$1200 a month, and lots of single-family homes from the quite modest to extravagant.
Japan also has some crazy flexible building code, zoning and such. Super super useful and we're starting to see it more over here. Houses should never have been turned into an investment - thats how New Zealand lost most of its native home owners
⁶
Japan's population is taking a L but you don't have very much usable space to start with. This is why your housing is is getting cheaper.
@@user-ye6ty9ie8g uh huh. Care to elaborate?
Japan is run around building of things. Even in ancient times, the merchant class was at the bottom of the hierarchy. Look at USA, nation of bankers and finance, everything is about making money now--people can't afford even a small condo anymore because the investment banks have bought up all the land. I've been to Japan and my friends there that are middle class can afford to have children and everything. Its like a lost dream that we have lost with the current state of affairs in USA.
I live in suburban New York (Suffolk County to be exact). The dirty little secret is that many homes here have converted basements, attics and garages into illegal apartments or rooms. Because the various townships refuse to make these variances legal, and the number of construction of apartments are limited. Rental rates are ridiculously expensive, forcing many to leave the area. By allowing these these little homes would go along way in solving the severe housing crisis.
Long Island is one of the worst places in the country when it comes to allowing new housing to meet supply :( Westchester isn’t great either, and NYC itself has a weirdly skeptical attitude towards upzonings. NJ picks up a lot of the slack, but yeah, we need better rules in Nassau and Suffolk.
@@neckenwiler This especially true with the Fairfield Organization buying up (or managing) every block of apartments and slapping the word “Luxury” all over the place.
I live in Nassau and we have the same thing. The only apartments being made are for seniors, so if you're looking for something that's basically your best bet. A basement for like $1500 a month, and you live in Suffolk where there's space to move around, here we have walkable neighborhoods which is nice for that but it means there's a million cars parked on the sides of the street and you can barely move. I feel like Duplexes would serve the same purpose only better in function, but all we see is overpriced condos being built. god forbid you can't afford the inflated prices or a house, or even just live alone, don't have kids or don't feel like taking care of a huge lawn and property
Those additions might make a house a little more expensive but they provide value and space to rent out.
@@paxundpeace9970 Exactly.
I come from South Africa. Granny flat are extremely common here! It's strange to think they are illegal in the US. I'd say that 80% of middle class homes have one or more annexes that they rent out to students, single people or elders relatives. In lower class homes its common to rent Wendy houses or even garages to people on your property.
It's because wealthy people have completely ruined this country and taken away any semblance of freedoms we had.
In law units are often allowed in the US and Canada but often can't get different meters and post box and more.
So they can't be rented out to somebody that isn't family legally.
In Canada you have sometimes homes with 5 bedroom/3 bath (washrooms in Canada) + 2 bedroom /2 baths in law units.
Those homes are gigantic and expensive.
They're not illegal. Just banned in uppity places. The Coach house I live in has been around for 100 years. (I live in Chicago)
@@nibirue They are banded in most communities poor or rich in north America (started in Vancouver Canada, 1920s so your home is before the bans). Which is dumb... I agree in part with you if it were only in uppity places it wouldn't be as much of a problem.
@@mementomori1022 That's not true lol. It was always about money. Never safety. Very few laws are in place for safety... even traffic laws are put in place for money not safety.
I realize there are 1000 reasons why people would or would not want an ADU in their yard. But in my neighborhood people already have multi families living in their home and there’s no place to park on the street anymore. I am constantly dealing with people partially blocking my driveway because they’re trying to fit their long truck into a small space because they are desperate. Traffic has increased exponentially and it is no longer a quiet place to live. Personally I think it’s affecting lower income area’s. You’re not gonna find them in places like Beverly Hills.
they’re all over beverly hills only there they are called carriage houses
Having lived in a university town with a lot of basement apartments, parking becomes a disaster. When each small lot has 4-5 cars, there simply isn’t enough driveway and street parking. Getting mail is also hugely difficult
yeah cars doo suck, we should build our cities such that they are mostly removed from cities, good point!
I'm from a college town and we are redoing our zoning to allows for accessory dwelling. The smart caveat is that the owner must live in the ADU for at least half of any year they rent out the main house and can't ever rent out the ADU. This helps prevent corporate landlords from hording up properties.
This is a brilliant idea. Multiple property owners have been shown to drive housing prices up significantly.
this is genius. I hope this becomes a standard practice for ADU development
Wait, you mean on the lot or in the ADU specifically? I definitely like this as having local landlords really seems to be better than having corporate ones.
Living 6 months in the unit is too long (to me) but definitely 2 months so they get a feel YEARLY for what needs to be fixed, etc.
AND the problem is that if I were to rent out an ADU I would want to live there for a long time. I’d be displaced yearly. This seems like overkill.
Corporations DO screw over people but sometimes “we” end up cutting off our noses to spite our faces with “our” solutions.
Come on, people! The answer is HOLD INDIVIDUALS ACCOUNTABLE for their properties. Let them do what they want with proper zoning, easy to obtain inexpensive permitting, proof of insurance and rental agreements.
Don’t be foolish. Short term renters don’t usually know a lot of people and don’t have parties. Everything is IT DEPENDS so it’s really an oversight thing.
And this is why MORE GOVERNMENT, when working WITH people to assist them with their long term goals to maintain their property, neighborhood, city and state is a win/win.
;)
This is what was done where I lived and building in back yards was allowed too. After the waiting period, corporations buy up a lot of it, and it becomes a neighborhood of high-density rentals, lots drugs, traffic, rolling blackouts, infrastructure problems, car accidents and illnesses are spread very quickly... measles, flu, COVID-19, etc.
I thought it was a good idea too, until I watched the city I once loved become nearly unlivable. The crime, gang problems we had never had and so on became an issue, we left and moved to a farm on 40+ acres.
We didn't get as sick all the time, schools had far more manageable class sizes, drugs weren't a thing, car accidents weren't a daily event, people were less stressed and generally nicer, we didn't have the plumbing problems, and we could relax.
I hope people who think this is a good idea go take a look at cities where this has been done before they decide to do this is their own neighborhood. It's certainly not what it's cracked up to be. The trash and especially syringes everywhere should be enough to wake at least some people up.
After living through this experiment, at least an acre per home seems about right. For families, a minimum of 3 acres seems about right for neighborhoods.
The 40 acre home seemed like a bit much, but an acre per person is about right for a healthy city.
People need plants and space around them to be healthy, to absorb CO², to keep germs from easily transmitting and lowering the viral and bacterial loads in transmittable diseases.
I just hope that the housing crunch will make city planners and governments realize that they should have burned their zoning books a long time ago. It's so very common here in North America to just add more stuff to existing zoning regulations without stringently reviewing existing rules to make sure they still make sense. I sincerely advise anyone who's interested in zoning and city planning to read Alain Bertaud, a superb architect and one of the very few who actually understand basic economics.
Well if the regulations weren't ridiculously complicated, they wouldn't need as many bureaucrats. It's all part of their evil plan. I don't understand why the government thinks it should be able to regulate what I do with my own property in the first place so long as it isn't directly affecting my neighbors!
I find your comment interesting. I'm in South Africa, and practice as an architectural draftsman. Still studying g for higher category architectural work. I always wonder how regulations apply in other countries. You mentioned that planners and government should burn their zoning books. Here in South Africa, I feel building inspectors should burn their regulation and building record books, because of corruption. I do however feel that there's merit is some zoning regs, due to over population and it contributes to heavy traffic and pollution. People who can afford to buy land elsewhere are tied to living up to the Jones by buying expensive cars and living lavishly. Things that are short term enjoyment.
@@planitdesigns6192 Bertaud actually helped in implementing the massive public housing plan in Joburg. There is an entire chapter on the pros and cons of South Africa's public housing. Long story short: public housing units were able to house a lot of low-income families, but because of regulations that forced all units to have the same floor plans and areas, they are basically all in the farthest extent from the city's centers because lands are cheap there. This is really bad because poor people are often the most mobility-disadvantaged, and I believe "normal" commuting in Joburg can be as long as 1hr30 to 2hr.
not gonna happen when speculators run the real estate market. You need to have more PERMENANT residents and less people cycling houses like fucking clothes
@@BlueBD Urban economics shows that the more housing is built through relaxing zoning codes, or using a pyramid system like in Japan and Taiwan, the less investors will use housing as an investment asset, since prices are lower and less attractive than other investments. It seems paradoxical, but look at all markets that have high turnover rates, they're those with very low new houses and very restricted zoning, like Vancouver, Auckland, the UK, the US, Hong Kong...
This is actually surprising to see as someone who emigrated to the U.S. from Latin America. Back in my country of origin, these types of housing are not only common, they are almost the norm for a lot of people. They are quite affordable and usually house young folks who are just moving out on their own for the first time. It is stricking to see how regulation has been designed in the U.S. to promote a specific quota only benefiting people within a certain demographic/income. Thank you for sharing this!
Problem:
ADU is subdivided and sold for $250K as "new" lot.
@@aolvaar8792 underlying issue: over regulation for our "safety".
@@juaecheverria0
In my City, 20K sqft is a standard city lot,
allows for garden and animal pens, (flood irrigated properties) with alley access.
Developers subdivide into three-6500 sqft lots, sell the water rights, now higher density or put up to 7 story apartments
putting houses into the "shadows".
Could pass a "greening law"
"Cannot put a house on land that did not have a house before"
No more building on virgin land.
@@aolvaar8792 why would we pass a law that states that no houses can be made where there are no houses before. How would thag help any homeless and poor who need houses for themselves? Thats the thing. Y'all love passing legislation "for our safety" but completely disregard what itd do to the poor americans. Then you'll complain about hoe the govt isnt putting laws to protect them which was what put them in this situation in the first place. How bout this, abolish these housing regulations to begin.
@@juaecheverria0
???? to prevent ADUs
When I moved to Florida and was looking for a house, I told the realtor NO HOAs and NO Deed restrictions. She laughed at me. After I "noped" the fifth house in a row, she started taking me seriously.
My lot is not only not part of an HOA and has no deed restrictions (a fascist policy), it is considered multi-family, so I can add whatever extra housing I desire.
If people stop buying them, they'll have no choice but to let people do what they want with their property.
It would be interesting to see how many ADU’s just become AirBnBs
75% of them in our HOA.. that's real data, not an estimate, and there are some very upset people in the 'hood!
AirBnB is literally in the process of failing currently. They've been a detriment to the nation on the whole and they're finally getting what they deserve. I suspect it's on its way out as it's come to be known for its many downsides including the overwhelmingly greedy and lazy property owners who use it.
My guess is most of them.
The alternative is an extra 2-3 cars parked out in front - the renter, his/her significant other and a friend who spends a lot of time out in the suburbs enjoying the nice yard. It's not the minor change to the character of the neighborhood that was advertised.
@@canuckviolet3322 based adu builders
When we replaced our garage in 2005, we had it enlarged to include a 10'x20' work space. I labeled is "Studio" meaning a art/work studio. Our city plan check had a fit thinking we wanted to add a studio apartment, what today we would call an ADU, and read us the Riot Act like we were doing something totally illegal. I had to relabel it "workshop" to get around it. Today they are still openly hostile to the idea and have had to forced by court order to loosen the red tape they have wrapped the initiative in.
It seems sexist...workshop seems more manly.
@@carissafisher7514 This seems... wildly irrelevant?
@@crazydragy4233 - And asinine. Don't forget asinine lol.
@@carissafisher7514 how is work shop more manly? You mean to say women don't work? You are sexist.
@@shadowrealm6 because a woman would more likely call it a studio/work studio and a man would more likely call it the workshop. Or a man might call it a den and woman might call it a study. There are differences in Vernacular based on sex, to say there are differences isn’t sexist.
There are a ton of these where I live. Except they all just turn them into short term rentals. So it just makes the housing problem worse.
yep, they eventually turn into airbnbs so landlords can get maximum profit
Are there Rent Control issues? It is easier to get a divorce with kids than it is to get rid of a tenant that has rent control. Rent control does not work but politicians love to cater to entitlement thinking. Can you blame landlords for wanting to have control over their own property? It is so easy to think anyone that owns a home, let alone a rental is wealthy.
because if you actually rent it out for extended periods your getting the shit end of the stick, because the government protects the tenant instead of the owner of the actual property. Rent control, rent payment moratoriums, no right to evict.
It’s just a question of basic economics, bid and ask. These will help lowering prices.
Airbnb has completely wiped out long term rentals in my area. It's a small town, housing has always been a challenge, but now it's a popular vacation destination and almost all the ADU's are Airbnb's. Then when you do find a rental, the owners often act like they are doing charity work for charging 2k a month instead of 5k.
Many of the older homes in our neighborhood have "Casitas" in back. We currently share ours with a family member, but it's also nice economic security since in a pinch we could squeeze the family into the house and rent the back.
In the UK we have had these types of houses for a while. We call them Granny Annex. As it sounds, they are for elderly relatives to move closer but not right into your home.
Here in the United States we call them mother-in-law houses. I've never heard of any of the other terms the narrator spoke of. Same concept.
Yeah! When I look on Rightmove at these houses with Granny flats or Granny Annex's, you can tell they are for elderly relatives because of the various mobility aids. I think most families would rather house their elderly relatives in these than a care home
Garden Suites etc. there are so many names for the same thing lol
I live in a grandmother flat! I'm in Upstate NY, a pretty rural area. It was wonderful to go from a walkup where I had to haul all my groceries and stuff up a fairly steep alleyway and then old rickety stairs, AND take all my laundry to my mom's house to having a nice, single floor little house of my own, with a laundry room included. My landlords are really chill, and the whole property has been in their family for decades now.
I would have liked to have seen more discussion about the counter-arguments, rather than a dismissal of them outright. San Diego's poor road infrastructure and lack of public transportation is making it so that ADUs are actually causing a lot of friction in neighborhoods. As I watched this video I saw a lot of areas that look great for ADU build up, but I was waiting to see you address problems relevant to my area.
One thing to consider is the added use of utilities like water and sewer, the neighborhood I live in has modest homes for working class people. ADUs in the backyard has been the reason the streets need to be torn up and larger underground infrastructure added to accomodate them. So, they do disrupt the landscape. Also ADUs often don't include parking - great if you have efficient transit options, not all cities and neighborhoods do, however. When highrises are the only other alternative, I guess ADUs are preferable though.
It is still better to add ADUs and update infrastructure than to add homes on the outskirts of cities that create more sprawl. For suburban development you have to build roads, water pipes, sewers, electrical infrastructure, sidewalks, and extend transit if even possible. It is MUCH MUCH MUCH cheaper to densify existing neighborhoods. ADUs also increase the tax base to fund shared amenities and infrastructure. They are really great for cities.
My mother's in her 40s and has never lived on her own before, and at this point she probably can't, not without assistance. An ADU was exactly what I had in mind without even realizing the term or controversy over it, because I want to be able to help care for her as she gets older. Hopefully my S/O and I won't have issues with this in the future.
In her 40s?
Old ladies cannot climb stairs. But at least she's RELATED to you, so she won't need to ADD ANOTHER CAR to your non-walkable neighborhood. So I'm OK with the "granny flat" idea but not with the reality of amateur landlords squeezing renters into a neighborhood designed for SFRs.
Whats an SO?
@@rasmokey4 significant other
@@johnbecich9540You're right to be worried about cars, our society must make war against them. A lot of people who might rent an ADU can get around with rideshare, taxi, mass transit, or an ebike/bike. Bike lanes are a lot cheaper than more car lanes. So let's not worry about owner/landlords as much as Wall Street ownership. Cars are more expensive now than ever and not getting cheaper. Cities ought to legalize & normalize more smaller electric vehicles. A family could ditch a second car for a UTV sized vehicle that could pull into a backyard and fit in a shed. Velomobiles (covered bikes) are becoming more common. Real alternatives to cars that can go through rain & snow are out there.
I live in a very nice Coach house in Chicago. I used to be homeless for a while before moving in and extremely greatful these exist because my landlord didn't care or ask about my credit score. I am greatful Chicago legalized these 70 years ago or else I'd probably still be homeless.
You made my point for me.
Ironically, Chicago has an absolute glut of vacant properties, they are just in the parts of the city that North Siders don’t frequent.
@@Mrhalligan39 - Exactly THIS! And this is the case in some.ither cities ad well. Maybe citizens or the local governments should invest in rebuilding those areas, hence expanding dwelling options.
@@justmeiniowa
Only talking points you regurgitate. There are plenty of real estate investments and developments in Chicago. People with more money than you.
@@Frank71 Yes, Frank, and they are avoiding the South Side like the plague. They’re going to fiiish driving everyone out of Pilsen and Humboldt Park first.
My Grandparents owned a house in Chicago that had a Coach House on the back that had two small units. Very affordable (even in the 50's through the early 90's) and always interesting people that lived there.
I live on Oahu where you basically never see this. What we have instead are these absolutely horrific 6-8 bedroom mansions going up in these very old neighborhoods where prices are very high but also most of the people there are aging locals who bought their homes back in the 60s-80s when they were affordable by middle-income families. The 'monster houses' as lots of people here call them have no yards, no grass, just a giant two-story mansion taking up nearly the entire lot with a cement parking lot for a yard, all clearly built as cheaply as possible with absolutely no regard for the neighborhoods aesthetic or sense of community. They are usually owned by banks and rented out piecemeal, like room by room, and often will have 4-8 cars in front of them. Its upsetting because, like many other states, we need affordable housing so badly here (like I can't imagine being a public school teacher in this state and trying to live here on that income), but this has to be one of the most thoughtless, ad hoc solutions possible. At the same time you will basically never see a smaller house behind a larger house here. I can't think of one at all, they're all at least connected and zoned as duplexes or multi-family.
That exposed plywood looks more cheap than stylish, tbh...
This thing of building houses in the backyard is pretty common here in Costa Rica to the point there are blocks without a single piece of empty land, and from experience I can tell there are worse issues than diminishing property value or increasing traffic. To me the most troublesome aspects of this are the difficulty to access a property in case of emergency, less room between housing units can create frictions because of the noise, getting rain water out of the property gets more difficult and water from one house can leak into the other very easily (especially if the lots aren't flat), privacy gets compromised and it just cluttered and messy.
That’s the big problem with wood-based design. The way to stop water getting into the houses is to build using a concrete 3D printer.
@@evannibbe9375 hate to break this to you, but water can also get thru concrete if you don't have proper water drainage.
@@evannibbe9375 lol concrete is porous
@@evannibbe9375 no that's the problem when you build something that's not up to code and/or build it like crap. Steps and requirements are done to account for the weather. Not just for redirecting rain somewhere appropriate but for making sure the water doesn't compromise the longevity of the house. Flashing, gutters, tarpaper, ventilation, insulation, siding, etc. Their purpose is not simply to make the house look good but to offer an impressive level of protection against the elements and have it last for years to come. When people ignore code or disregard detals like that as needless you end up with structures that end up breaking down and needing more maintenance.
Same thing in the Province of Buenos Aires, in Argentina.
As the one who assigns addresses for new ADUs in my City in California I can attest they have increased greatly in the last few years. Often garages are converted or grass areas covered with the new ADU to the extent there is hardly any yard or parking left for tenants.
If someone wants a place for elderly relatives to live semi-independently near them, then I am all for that. Most of these seem to be attempts by owners to cash in and double rental income while leaving new and old tenants living in cramped conditions with little yard or parking.
I live in Ann Arbor and they're building like crazy. There are five new huge subdivisions in development within two miles of my home. The property taxes are very high in Ann Arbor, the new homes are cramed but very pricey ( starting $600K) so the city takes lots of money. But they don't built new roads so the trafic is getting more and more congested.
I'm in local government, in my country, we call these Kangaroo Dwellings if I'm not mistaken. While I support this concept as executed here by the architect couple, let me just say this to anyone considering constructing such a thing: Please be responsible with the exterior design. Make - an attempt - to have your new addition fit in with the adjacent and surrounding developments. It does not take many bad eye-sore examples for nimbies to be able to shoot down a tentative liberalization such as this one, trust me.
I agree!
I think that the housing crisis has better answers than this. Zillow being forced to relist properties at fair market value before their price hike across country would be ideal. People in the middleclass may be able to afford a house again if companies don't stranglehold the market like prior to the last housing crisis.
Nope, we have a housing crisis. Eye sores are acceptable given the situation.
@@jdsd744 Yes, that would certainly help, if it were possible to do such a thing without screwing over working and middle class families by intervening in such a way; You'd be popping a massive bubble in the housing market. Something similar happened in 2008 and the effects of that event rippled out across western economies, resulting in what's often referred to as the Great Recession. Making housing cheaper isn't going to be of any benefit to ordinary people, if they lose their source of income in the process.
Personally, I think Accessory Dwelling Units as seen in the video will help. They're by no means a full solution, but having more of them would at least gradually increase the supply of housing, making living space less appealing as a speculative investment.
@@jacobframe8769 Yeah, I know. I've experienced the housing crisis first hand. As far as I'm concerned "I don't like how it looks" is an absolutely asinine objection to raise in response to any initiative that would help resolve the crisis... But that's just _my opinion_ as a single balding 32 year old dude on a single town council... Untill young people miraculously start showing up en masse to city council meetings (...lol) across the west to tell the suburban NIMBY homeowners to go bork themselves: Our best bet as people trying to solve the housing crisis, is to work around the NIMBY's absurd self-centered gatekeeping and hair trigger outrage-reflex. I hate it, but I can't see another way.
I always felt that stigma around mobile homes hindered a great housing opportunity and if they were designed like these coach houses it could change the direction of houseing im my opinion
Is the problem with mobile homes that they’re stigmatized or that they’re often poorly constructed and don’t hold up under bad weather?
@@MisatoIto not anymore. They come built with standard lumber and depending on construction can have a stem wall foundation. They have improved dramatically along with their price unfortunately.
They are hard to tell apart these days unlike the old tin cans
@@MisatoIto `Mobile Home` is such a blanket term these days. It honestly covers everything from things that are actually mobile (trailers) to modular homes delivered on trailers to a lot. I think the term has inherent issues in it's colloquial use.
@@GonzoDonzo you are absolutely correct. They are built better; however, the comment you responded too is also correct about the homes being stigmatized.
@@electrojag1 yeah its relevant for stuff built pre 90's but they are very different these days. Unfortunately i think they have priced themselves out of their own market.
We were recently looking at some for my mother and in our county it was going to cost almost 300k to put the modular on the property. Now a third was permits but thats still almost 200k for the home. Its cheaper for us to just build a real home so thats the route were going.
I live in San Diego - in the Hillcrest neighborhood. Much of this neighborhood and others close by were developed in the 1920s and there are many of these accessory units. One of my neighbors is adding a second and third floors to theirs - the ground floor being a garage and the other two a really gorgeous living unit. Clearly these were grandfathered in, and I’m pleasantly surprised owners are being allowed to update/expand their units.
The #1 impediment to housing development is Zoning and Planning departments. It's like an HoA for an entire city or county. Someone back in the 70's decided what houses sizes, and development standards should be. But we are reforming.
So, here's my take on this topic, and it's important to understand that I don't have a horse in the race. In my long adult life, I've never owned or lived in a single family home. I neither have a NIMBY attitude toward preserving specific "character" above all else, and I also don't fault people who find themselves living in car dependent suburbia. I understand that decades of policy shaped how the majority of Americans live today in these car dependent places. While ADUs might be fine in small and midsized cities without traffic issues, putting more car dependent housing in car dependent contexts doesn't solve for congestion issues in larger fast growing metros that are often decades and decades away from real transit solutions beyond the car for the majority. I can easily see ADUs being encouraged within specific walksheds or as part of a strategy to create walkable neighborhoods. In those instances, I can see their immense value to the community. However, if there is no real opportunity to fundamentally transform car dependent suburban areas, I remain skeptical. I'd rather see our governments look for holistic solutions for more housing that gets people out of their cars for at least some of their daily/weekly activities, and not ones based on how they primarily financially benefit individual homeowners who want ADUs behind their houses in their 0 walkscore cul-de-sacs.
This is exactly my view as well. So many people seem to focus on how it is good for the owner to have an ADU instead of their functionality with the rest of the city infrastructure. In the city I go to school in there are TONS of ADUs but the city is literally not built for the density of it. There are so many more people living in the neighborhoods, but no real public transit or walkability, everyone drives. THE ROADS ARE CONSTANTLY PACKED AND BUSY, its just constant drivers getting into crashes.
@@cameron7938 Thanks for the concurrence! I am all for densifying; don't get my wrong. I just find car dependent density the worst of all worlds.
Well if adu rub you the wrong way , rezoning would help. Allow people to build small shops and commercial business on their property it would help alleviate the issue , hell even building small transportation infrastructure would help
@@joestein6603 none of your suggestions are small...and come from a place of ignorance.
I agree with the op. As a person in a city with these allowed in certain instances, its not as if I look at them askance- they can be nice and look nice- THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE HOWEVER. Infrastructure for the density of population is needed, and if its not present, repairs and costs go up astronomically. A system overly built and largely robust will have fewer maintenance issues that are 'big deals'.
Due to the car density problem here, even with many busses and dozens of miles of bike lanes, it can take ridiculous amounts of time to get anywhere.
Pizza (and other similar fast eatery delivery) places no longer deliver under an hour, even if your are very nearby. They are simply incapable due to the traffic. The minimum is always quoted at 75 to 90 minutes, and this is often not long enough.
Our buses can only run on schedule when the car traffic is under control- and it is not, so those on public transport are even more burdened.
@@jdsd744 so your solution is to complain , I gave some ways of alleviating the issue . A robust public transportation is needed yes but I also suggest rezoning so small commercial shops can pop up on the block , if you allow people more options they would take whatever is easier and building a shop or too would help with traffic. Because people would walk if a store is across the street. I'm sure somebody said" every journey begins with a single step" you don't start you don't see progress , by doing nothing start small you can carpooling , taking public transportation, voting, educating people in the area that hey if we invest in this public transportation you would have less traffic. You can even join city council if you feel strongly enough and can do a better job than the politicians in charge but to comment on TH-cam with a stranger ain't gonna help you or your city. Good day sir
We have something similar in Sweden, Attefallshus. They need to reach less than 13 1/8 feet tall and not cover more than 329 square feet of ground, and not be less than 15 feet from the edge of the plot. Usually built with a sleeping loft, but adding a full basement is perfectly legal.
Sounds like it should be built with 4 levels of basement to get the maximum amount of housing.
Much better than the 3’ these folks left next to the fence line…where they plan to install “shrubs someday”. I’d hate to live next to a giant eyesore box when I bought a home with park frontage. No wonder the fence is 9’!
@@r8chllettersWould you really rather have less housing than maybe one or two odd-looking houses? Who cares if it's close to the lot line. Be lucky you even have a home, with so many folks going homeless, even while working full time. Huge setbacks disqualify most properties from even *trying* to build an ADU. I actually think the ADU featured in this video *is* ugly, but many of the pre-designed ones that were shown were very nice. I'd just as soon see cities adopt standardized designs that go along with existing neighborhood architecture, to quell concerns such as yours, and then go easier on setbacks and lot size requirements.
@@Nphen it’s one thing to buy into a neighborhood that is in high density development and another to have your backyard become a viewing site by giant buildings that basically eat the entire lot footprint…and take away privacy and quiet and change your home value. I’d rather see us covert golf courses into homes and make houses price capped so everyone can afford a 5-year mortgage for 25% of earnings. But to ruin current neighborhoods whose footprint is already small is really sad.
The character of a neighborhood lies not in how it looks, but the character of its inhabitants. More people, more problems.
More people means that small businesses can survive, shared amenities like libraries, parks, and schools have the funds to serve the community. More people = more neighbors, more businesses, and better places to live.
@@modernaduplans Unless those people are serial thieves and vagrant non-taxpaying lowlives.
character of its inhabitants... Hmmm elaborate! ;)
@@milanomartin5417 Not everyone gets along.
@@GSPfan2112 who ya not getting along with and why do you have to interact with your neighbors?
The thing that frustrates me about ADUs and illegal apartments in attics/basements is that this is proof that people don't need the massive houses being built today. Build smaller stuff that people actually need! 4-6 story walkups would be hugely popular!
Simpler to clean and maintain. Geared towards the minimalist lifestyle.
Not everyone can navigate a walk-up.
@@rubyruby6358 Fortunately I'm not talking about building those exclusively
The houses in my hood are 5bd, 3bth, when people had 6-8 kids,
What do I do with the extra room?
While true, its good to have ones own space so ADUs or any number of terms work quite well too esp if you live in an area with really high buy in costs. Modern houses are far too big, what should be happening is people build smaller custom units that fit what they themselves need - the attitude IS changing but not fast enough honestly
One of the homes near me has been constructing an ADU. Sometimes I walk my dog by it to see how it’s coming along. I think it’s a good idea. Better than spreading out over the rich farmland my area has.
In SC, a lot of people by the largest, 2 story sheds at Lowes and Home Depot and turn them into "party sheds" in the back yard so that the HOA and/or city/town/county wont bother with the homeowner. In reality, a lot of them have electricity run out there and either full plumbing or a camping toilet arrangement. It ends up becoming the dorm room for college age kids or family members down on their luck.
I've lived in ADU's and have had some really great experiences and some really frustrating experiences. The best one I had was nice and new, the rent was fair, the owner was friendly and never bothered me or invaded my space in any way. I also had my own fenced back yard and it was great. I've lived in others where it feels like your space is always being invaded and that sucks.
Let people build ADU's and provide better housing for folks while turning a profit. There should be a stipulation though that you can't turn it into a short term vacation rental because Airbnb is seriously destroying the long term rental market in many communities.
I'd be worried that AirBnB would buy up & take over such added properties. I confess I'd be highly concerned if it happened in a neighboring plot & one of those infamous wild AirBnB situations occured. Rules for this would also have to go into localities not just laws for the physical structures.
Why do you care that people choose to make their ADU's airbnbs?
My neighbor is doing this. Except it will be an air bnb. Just like the duplex next door and a few others on the block. Rumor I've heard is air bnbs earn 2x that of long term rentals. Means the price of houses can go even higher because the return on investment still makes sense at those prices. So homes becomes less affordable while the number of long term rentals available decrease. Pretty shitty.
The more housing stock being created still helps. Stops an existing unit from being taken off the market at least
Would you rather have big hotels get more money? Doesn’t mean it will be an Airbnb forever.
Not sure whe re you live, California state law prohibits ADUs being used for rental less than 30 days.
@@jasonheyward2873 in Georgia. My city has laws limiting the number of short term rentals on a per block basis, but the laws haven't been enforced yet so its getting out of hand. Not sure what our laws specifically on ADUs are.
This works on small lots where there is central water and sewer. Parcells that have septics - if allowed to build, the septic mound/field would have to be doubled. Easily a 20 grand extra cost.
In California we are limited by the department of environmental health to .45 acre per detached structure to install a septic system. So while the ADU process is simple, if you have any less than .9 acres and are on septic, than you cannot build a permittable ADU. Even if you have an acre+ lot, some times you have to instal a advanced system that cost 3-5x and requires a recurring inspection fee for the life of the system. 20k for this type of system would never happen, if these restriction eased up just a hair, than a septic system can be installed for about 10k.
I have an ADU on 13 rural acres. 2 septics. Built both houses myself. Each septic was 3k installed by contractor. Both share water from the same well and electric from the same meter. It’s not that big of an issue
I imagine some new exurban lots still use septic tanks, but are there that many lots where septics are still common?
@@wrileys 100% of the county lots in my county with are .5 acre or bigger us septic. I know county is different but in Nevada almost all communities are “county” lots
Alternatively, incinerator toilets are an easy solution.
I can see both sides of this. In Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, I feel we have the problem of property investors trying to cram as many dwellings into a property as possible. The result is streets filled with parked cars since there's no space for them on the property. I've seen one house divided into two dwellings, with the garage turned into two additional dwellings and an additional small cabin and a caravan placed onto the lawns. Crazy.
Damn, its pretty visible even from google maps. Also, whats up with the skewed houses over there? Weird to see a house that isnt perpendicular to the street
Letting people you don’t know live in your backyard might not be such a good idea.
You have a choice? How nice.
In Western/Central Sydney these granny flats are pretty common but almost always hated for a few reasons. Usually a renter is living in the property when the home owner decides to build a granny flat in the backyard and the renter has no say on whether they want this construction since it isn't their property. Almost all cases of a single dwelling with a granny flat are occupied both by renters. These granny flats have not reduced the rental cost in the area either, rent in my areas has been increasing each year even with the added granny flat constructions. Nowadays granny flat rent per week is almost the same price as a single dwelling without a granny flat. The most common reasons home owners construct granny flats is always monetary objectives, with the increase of rental prices at the cost of minimising space its no wonder these dwellings are looked down upon.
These things suck. They over crowd neighborhoods, are cheaply built and create parking havoc. Also they don’t fix the problem (not enough affordable homes for sale). Exurban building would fix that problem but instead of building 8,000 new tract homes in bumble fuck nowhere they think adding 18 ADUs to a street is going to “fix housing”. It’s not it just crowds up the place and makes life worse there
They also reduce the number of trees in suburbs, reduce privacy and amenity, and increase the cost of managing services for local governments (think about the additional garbage to be collected on suburban streets not designed for these densities - larger trucks are required but often small local roads and cul de sacs can’t accomodate them, so more smaller trucks are required doing more kms less efficiently). The notion that they are unequivocally positive and crucial to improving affordability is a con. They benefit landowners and developers and in Sydney, are simple reducing the amenity in many neighbourhoods and increasing the gap between rich and poor. They certainly have a role to play, but careful planning is required and the recent Medium Denisty Housing SEPP, rebranded the Housing Diversity SEPP, is not careful - it’s a sledgehammer where a scalpel is required.
@@LucasFernandez-fk8se Agreed especially when these granny flats are built in an urban sprawl area where you need to drive for basic amenities further minimising space with added vehicles. Its a band-aid solution that doesn't even bring down housing cost to begin with since it only profits the home owners who don't even live in the main dwelling to start with.
The thing with density is until critical mass is hit, the density will repeatably allow for twice as much income. I think the happy medium of density is three story multi-family homes.
Portland, Oregon requires that the homeowners must live in one of the buildings on their property, if they are to have an ADU. It maintains the “neighborhood character” and prevents the property values from dropping.
I've been getting more and more plans across my desk lately with ADUs. I wasn't really sure what the point was, but this video has given me a great appreciation for them
You should have interviewed the neighbors to see what they think about it.
This lol. Imagine spending $2 million on a house in a nice neighborhood just to have your property value drop $300k so your neighbor can earn some extra income.
@@karakaaa3371Housing is a human right no matter how much you hate poor people.
@@LucidFL Yeah cuz my neighbor with a $2 million home is a poor person
Yes, the dwelling itself doesn't necessarily have to impact the sightline beauty of a suburb, but with more people comes more noise, more likeliness for the increase of tensions between neighbors as people are literally living in peoples backyards, and then there is the impact to the street scape in other ways, such as parked cars (I don't see a garage, car port or driveway being a requirement for these as are often the rules for typical dwellings in suburbia.) Whilst also not necessarily a rule, people who are in ultra low/low cost housing such as these types of dwellings, are typically, both literally and metaphorically, less invested in the suburb (these are not always seen as forever homes) which can have a measurable impact on a suburbs security and amenity.
At the same time there is a housing crisis, and clearly we need more affordable housing. Here in Australia we have 'Hammerhead' blocks springing up everywhere which is a way to keep the existing house at the front of a block, and subdivide the back yard to put another traditionally full size house on the back. This comes at the consequence of not having a large back yard, but in todays time poor society anyway not everyone has time to maintain such a back yard. Instead, local councils are moving to ensure there are public open spaces instead which are maintained by the council services that can be used for the kids or for picnics, or other sports. Its another interesting solution to the problem that is in a lot of ways similar to this, and in others, completely different.
This reminds me of some neighborhoods in LA where they have 2 homes in their backyard. It doesn't look nice and your packed in like sardines. I say look for another option.
As one of the participants in Houston's ADU program, I definitely think that they provide an opportunity for cities with large amounts of single-family home developments to increase housing density and diversity! Here in Houston, I do hope that the ADU program gains traction, as too many single-family lots are being redeveloped into multiple, identical townhomes, which may increase housing density, but are creating a housing monoculture (where everything is a 3 or 4 bedroom town home!)
Diversity 🤣
Kyle, Thanks for being part of the solution. You're not alone out there. Check out Casita Coalition and get involved as these are no longer just local issues. It's a national discussion that we need people from all parts of the country involved in.
both of these are non-solutions
we can build much bigger on those lots and really lots should be combined to build massive apartment complexes
we do not have unlimited resources to make everything look as beautiful as your american dreams but we do have the resources to make everything look "good" and work well as peoples and socialists movements across the world have proved
some places should be left as small scale and historic housing we want options and variety in housing options but if you are talking about maximizing affortable housing no it will not all look like home and garden nor should it
@@williamrobinson4265 so you want us all in Chinese type cities
@@stud6414 what do you mean?
I like this. My parents did something similar for a friend of the family that went through a divorce. They turned a garage bay into an efficiency. Put a nice bay window in. Walled it off. Built a little building off the back for the bathroom.
In Southern California, many ADUs are used as AirBnB for short term rentals, especially near the beach, old town, foothill (hiking trails), or tech job hubs.
I'd be pretty pissed if my neighbor put up a 2 story house looking into my back yard.
I agree, a lot of these people don't understand that they will not have privacy that's not very neighborly. There's no housing shortage, there's empty houses everywhere.
What privacy? You’re on a mini computer in ur hands that you have practically given away all your rights to have access to their apps…
ADUs we’re approved in a very residential family neighborhood in my sisters-in-laws neighborhood. One sister-in-law had one constructed without notice behind the it home. The trees were all cut down, the 2-story walls were put up along the entire back fence, and now the windows of this ADU overlooks their yard and pool. My nephews don’t feel comfortable playing outside and my brother-in-law has to keep windows closed because people are always looking at them. They’re housing 9 people in that ADU!! My family is now looking to move. No amount of protest will fix this issue.
I’m all for mother-in-law quarters or what is considered Nex-Gen, but many are built with ZERO consideration for parking spaces leaving cars having to park in narrow streets. Then you add addition water, sewer, and electric consumption for an
areas that were never originally designed to upload the load. Finally, you have to account for added children into the schools. This is just poor planning all around!
@@sodman4874 ??? 2 MM houses in the last decade went to the 2nd home market, (2% interest helped)
I like the OSB and foam core, the lack of fire proof surfaces on wall and ceiling. Saves a ton of money and makes a wonderful FIRETRAP.
I WONDER HOW MUCH YOU HAVE TO BRIBE THE CODE OFFICER TO PASS THIS.
This place is so awful. I hope my city doesn’t ever allow this garbage.
Who the hell wants exposed particle board ceilings 🤣
The biggest issue regarding ADUs is parking. Having lived in the SF Bay Area for 40 years and seeing the on street parking nightmare adding additional cars is crazy. As you know, in most older California residential neighborhoods people do not park their cars in their garages adding to the on street parking problem. Perhaps ADUs work best in less dense neighborhoods with larger lots. This is not a NIMBY reaction but a reflection of the experience of living in those neighborhoods over many years.
You make a valid point
A lot of young people embracing car free living. This doesn’t have to be a problem.
@@julianpowers594 No
You are 100 percent correct sir I live in a very populated and dense area in Oakland and parking has been a nightmare since my 2 neighbors renovated their garages into ADUs. So now I gotta be a Karen and call parking enforcement if a car has been there more then 72 hrs because I can't find parking anymore
When everyone on your street has a car something is wrong with your public transportation.
Thank you for explaining this. Here in NY, the suburban parts were contstructed to purposefully keep minority communities out. Now they are trying to allow these accessory dwellings, which is amazing. SO many people cannot afford housing or to buy a house. Or like me, bought a house, but due to unforeseen life changes, have had difficulties ever since. I have kept the house thanks to help from NYS, but it would be great to have the extra income as a baseline to help stabilize my income.
Poor people were excluded, not general minorities. If minorities were excluded than ADU neighborhoods would exist and be disproportionately White. Even then, Black people the only sizeable minority race at the time of construction who would feasibly be discriminated against.
I live in Silicon Valley and ADUs don't help (and sometimes makes worse) the problem with cars and parking. (I understand that Cars are a massive problem on their own, but they're a necessary part of living here). A single family home with an ADU is going to have four adults, with their four cars, living on that lot. When my parents built an ADU on their corner lot in Cupertino, they didn't have to worry about the renters being able to find street parking. Their neighbors who added and ADU to a duplex made their already awful parking situation even worse. You can tell when a small residential neighborhood has a bunch of ADUs because street parking is completely packed.
I transformed my detached garage as a loft for around 6000$ 10 years ago, i use to live there while I rented my house. I'm pretty sure my city would never have allowed it..
I have a second cousin (I think that's the kind) who built a area above his garage in a country area, his father lives there. But who wants to live at least a hour from shopping or a quality full needs hospital.
Currently I live, myself, in a shrinking town whose access was a US highway, it's been rerouted into a bypass a mile north of the town, at least 1/3 of the towns commercial frontage has folded, and become accessory space for things like the communications company. Our grocery store has even become storage for some company. Our service stations have gone by the wayside to 5AM to 10PM convenience stores. Our population has been in steady decline, I think it's like 1.25 people per residence, and the school handles 3 towns. The communications company is a monopoly for phone, internet and cable handling 4-5 towns, our post office is box delivery only and part time retail counter. Others get mail rural route from a post office in another county. Our nearest full line grocery store is 15 miles, a mini Walmart 23, and a major town 45 with Costco and Walmart and Target.
@@Stache987 that's so sad
@@Stache987 so basically how 2/3 of Europe is living? 🤌
Can anyone please answer this question. What about sewage lines? More residential means more bathrooms. I'm certainly not an engineer or architect but if every single dwelling unit gets an accessory dwelling unit won't it overflow the sewage? I'm not criticizing the concept, I'm honestly asking.
@@andrewgraziani4331 Overflow is a real possibility, yes. The sewer pipes in my neighborhood had to be replaced because of densification. Guess who got billed a special one-time charge to help pay for that?
I work in local government in the planning and public works department. I, personally, like ADUs and tiny houses. I think they add character to a neighborhood, as well as, adding more housing options at different prices.
A problem that ADUs and other types of infill housing have is whether or not there are enough numbers available to assign new addresses. Too often these old neighborhoods had houses that were assigned sequential numbers with no extra numbers left in between the houses. So, they were given 2, 4, 6, etc. and not 2, 10, 16, etc. This is a problem for emergency responders, elections personnel, and delivery personnel. What then occurs is that the new housing is given an address of 2A, 2B, etc. My emergency services personnel and elections personnel have told me that the addresses with A, B, C, etc. and 1/2s, 1/4s are difficult to program for them to find easily.
woohoo i have lived in my ADU for a year now, and i love it so much! we have a duplex in the front, with their two yards, and we have our duplex AUD in the back with our shared yard!! we all have dogs, and sometimes we open all the gates and combine all the yards together. it's great price wise, my dogs and i are so much happier here than a regular apartment. not to mention it's handicap friendly so my mom can visit.
I think are a wonderful solution. They really remind me of the mixed zoning of Tokyo. Now that ADU's are becoming more widespread the one thing that I wish we could reincorporate would be small commercial lots in neighborhoods. Such as corner coffee shops and small grocery stores.
When the "right to maintaining property value" is put above the "right to shelter", my sympathy gets thrown through the windows of those NIMBYs.
There is no right to shelter perhaps we should raid your retirement plan to make sure everyone has their rights as you put it.
Yes I have been homeless in my youth.
Private property rights are the bedrock of a functioning democracy.
You should think about that.
Is that because it isn't happening to you?
@@andyiswonderful no, it's because actual human beings care more about other humans having shelter than they do about their own accumulation of wealth.
@@tarabooartarmy3654 ha! If only that really were the case... unfortunately it's more common for ppl to put personal gain above public good
@@xxportalxx. I mean, it IS true of “actual human beings” like I said. 😊
Bringing increased density to a suburb is the worst of both worlds... you get the problems of a city with none of the amenities. When ADUs were approved in my town, traffic and parking became a nightmare. Don't even get me started on the crime/noise/nuisance of short term rentals in a residential neighborhood.
Traffic is terrible, especially near the U of M campus. When you jam 40k students in the center of a small city, things get crowded. Fortunately, the university is building high-rise parking complexities. Many modest homes are over 50 years old or much older, but urban sprawl is providing larger, more modern homes, at some reasonable commute away. Dundee Mi to the south has been a commuter community for Ann Arbor workers over the last several decades. Many University's' staff educators own property in the Irish Hills area approximately a one hour drive west on US 12. This town is still one of the best areas to live in southeast Michigan.
I forget the name, I think it's Iconic, but they develop beds that lower from the ceiling and office spaces that slide out from a wall, so when you aren't using these spaces, they disappear and restore the maximum size of your living space. It would seem to be the way to go, instead of permanently devoting of large percentage of the space to, say, sleeping.
There are several companies but Core 77/Resource Furniture has really cool stuff.
Murphy beds have existed for many years. They allow rooms to fulfill two purposes.
I live with my mom is a very small place but we are building a ADU type thing, it more like a 2 car garage with a 550sq/ft suite on top for my self to live in. One big benefit that you didn't talk about is the infrastructure upgrades. The main reason we did the project was to fix our 80 year old swear line that need to be replaced. Along with a 200 amp panel upgrade and 220 volt outlets wired up for 3-phase EV charging, along with making the lot solar ready and optimized, everything from the roof angle and extra large overhangs on the south side for the best solar adsorption. We even gained 600sq/ft of usable yard space to.
So well made, I genuinely felt like I was watching a tv programme!
We could use more people like this: people who look to add to the world. It's a win-win-win, and that it's both an enjoyable thing that they can do that also is a gain for them and is a gain for renters and everyone seemingly.
I really love how the architects put so much consideration and care into this. That they considered the renters' dignity, privacy, and general QoL in a way that sounds affordable and sustainable. It really sucks trying to find a decent affordable rental, and high density housing seems to always be ill-planned and overly expensive for the average person in my area. Or, if it is affordable its way out in BFE.
Regulations are very rarely enforced where I live so this kind of construction is common. While it provides alot of benefits some of the criticisms are spot on. ADUs increase density in suburbs where people rely on cars to go anywhere. If people are leaving urban apartments to live in cheaper ADUs, they'll be contributing to traffic. Depending on the extent of renovations in the neighbourhood, this means cars all over the streets leaving little room for pedestrians or big garage frontages.
They seem like a bit of a stop-gap solution to a problem that ultimately originates in demographic and economic issues.
Shhh! We're not allowed to talk about class issues on this channel. In fact, architects are such goons that they never talk about class, they don't know a damned thing about it. They are butlers for the upper class.
@@johnryskamp2943 Exactly. As someone who studied both philosophy and architecture, I can't describe this profession in any better way then "butlers for the upper class". If you extrapolate this "solution" into the future, without changing the political-economic system we are currently in, it becomes an image from sci-fi dystopian movies.
@@ZRodTW
Architects, traffic engineers, city leaders, etc. DO need to be more open and blunt about classist and racist ideology - the one we are currently living in. Instead of using technology, planning, ai driven planning algorithms, all the goodies we have at our disposal, with this so called solution, we are not progressing further, rather we are regressing into the solutions of the 18th century. Wondering what's next? Upper class bourgeoisie building these objects and renting them for even more money, so much so that the renter becomes servant. I've already seen this happening during the 90s, 00s in USA, and it's being perpetuated in, for example India, for centuries - the so called "voluntary servitude". It seems to me like todays intellectuals fail to grasp the implications of these "solution", and just like greenwashing, we are washing our way into something far worse.
I want to see these nimbys, like you call them, saying "no, we don't want this in our backyards" not because it will lower our property prices, but because they are inhumane solution to a humane problem.
You are right about one thing, though, these people are clueless about their own ideology. But I'm afraid architects, planners, investors, politicians etc. are as well, if not worse.
@@dejanzibert5306 I see where you’re coming from, but I believe ADU’s can be one of the many steps we take in order to improve our neighborhoods, cities and to alleviate the housing crisis. Of course they need to be implemented along with other solutions (as someone commented here: mixed use zoning, bike lanes and better transit) but if done right it can be a step in the right direction
I grew up in a 1960s development. Single car driveway, and with four kids, we had at least three cars parked on the street.
So parking density? It's not that much of a concern, especially in developments with larger lots, multicar garages, and wide driveways. (My current house can house two cars in the garage and four in the driveway.)
My 1950s neighborhood has huge lots. Some could accommodate an ADU in the FRONT yard!
I did wonder about adding an extra floor above the existing ranch garage, turning the garage footprint into a mini-apartment building.
The problem is having two families with several kids each living on the same parcel of land and not paying much in additional property taxes, but costing the local government 150K per year to send 12 kids to school. I think its great for grandma but noway should people be able to pack in giant families and expect all the government services that come with it for no additional cost.
And giant families is what will happen.
Unfortunately we had this issue in our neighborhood. We had a recovery house put one in the backyard of a quarter acre lot. Just a fancy shed really so they could fit additional clientele. Just didn't sit right with me.
What about letting people share the houses they have? You can own a house the size of a dairy barn in most fancy communities (Cambridge, for example), but it's against the rules to let out rooms or apartments. The same rule-makers will make the most green noise, naturally.
We've been building annexes in the UK since forever. Also common now in big cities is to sell off a portion of your back garden/yard and let someone build a house on it, or build one yourself and sell it off (or move in and sell the original house). Often these are accessed via back alleys or paths between the houses.
ADUs are common in Europe and Asia. It's honestly shocking that North America has ignored them.
Not ignored, specifically banned them until a profit motive arises.
My city's in the middle of a housing crisis that's been going on for the better part of a decade. Found out after watching this video that the city council rejected an ADU proposal 4 years ago. They've also been slow-walking _literally every_ housing development plan, which is especially insane because there are massive, empty areas in between neighborhoods in this city just waiting for someone to build on them. I can understand some areas being too mountainous (though some of the houses I deliver to call that argument into question), but my apartment faces an empty lot. And across from that empty lot is another. These are places that are begging for houses, condos, apartments... _anything,_ and yet nothing is being done with them.
The cost is just too high because you have to sink all of your money into a payout that isn't going to even start coming in for 5-6 years. Nobody can buy land and build apartments here unless it's a major developer that already has a ton of cash flow, and even then, the prospects aren't good.
My grandma lived in the mother in law bungalow and it was a great way to grow up. Luckily my mom and her got along.
This doesnt seem to be an answer for homelessness nor an alternative for high rent prices, but a response to the persiveness of empty homes due to speculation. Building another home in the back of your own is extremely common in Brazil. It is called edícula. Several low income families does that in the same lot.
Here, in São Paulo, Brazil, 30% of the homes are empty. The lack of affordable homes isn't a question of lack space, it's a question of bad distribution.
this
I’m currently having an ADU built in my backyard in Los Angeles for my parents.
This ruined my home because we got a new unexpected neighbor with a second story window facing our once-private back yard deck and windows. It's disgusting to do this to a neighbor's property
Agreed. I don't mind solutions but they need to be careful about how they do them. Like not putting it against your neighbors yard and put windows on the back side where they now have full view of their yard.
I live in Portland, and one problem that I keep noticing is that once the original ADU builder sells their property, the value of the ADU and rental income potential is built in to the sale price. One aspect of the housing shortage isn't just a literal lack of housing--it's also the cost of that housing. Once the house has that ADU included in the price, it just makes it harder for families to afford a house, especially if they don't want to be forced to be landlords at the same time. I can't begin to tell you the number of houses for sale that have effectively abandoned ADUs or basement apartments because renting to strangers who will live 5 feet from you and that you have to collect money from is really hard. So, the overall increase in livable units is good, but it also doesn't seem to lead to increased income for the owner, or lowered rent for the renters.
This is where a DADU is better, as a seller can re characterize the property as a condo and therefore the different houses can be sold seperately.
exactly what i was thinking. Do we need more landlords? But at the moment, we should take what we can get
@@Jack-fw4mw but if you allow subdivision then the land values skyrocket and the resulting condos aren’t affordable either. Affordability can’t be addressed on the supply side only, it’s only part of the solution , and depending on the particular example potentially only a small part. In some countries, better regulation is required so that the use of dwellings as investments needs to be disincentivised in financial and taxation systems.
There are three main objections people have to ADUs and more density in their suburban neighborhoods: 1. Two more cars per house on the street, leading to parking wars. Everyone needs a car to get to work. 2. Loss of privacy/views from two story ADUs in a one-story development. 3. Neighborhoods dominated by renters instead of owners with the resulting decline in home maintenance and quick turnover of neighbors. Personally, I object to them on principle. I want to create more homeowners, not more landlords.
Not to mention when all neighbors on all sides do this you know they will be cutting down trees. They like to pretend that this is so good for the environment. Many of these lots the only "good" space to build out have a giant old mature tree. This example only looks good in this video bc this is a.midwest town with a large student population and they are across the street from a park and have no back neighbors. Show me a real world application of this where density is actually a problem like a burb near Philly or Balitmore (no wide streets and not walkable and no clean educated college kids for occupants) and it will look horrible and ghetto with a bazillion cars and the kind of behavior that inspired HOAs.
I hate HOAs. But then I see what happens when there aren't HOAs. People parking 10 broken cars in thier lawn, painting thier house black and lime green or flamingo pink, people with living room furniture rotting away on porch bc its not meant to be outdoor furniture etc) .... there should be more building of rental space (converting garages, basements, attics) and redevelop abandoned strip malld but not every cape cod community is a good candidate.
I live in an “ADU” in west Washington… a renovated shed, 430 sqft… $1400/month. Absolute rip off but if it weren’t for this ADU I wouldn’t have found a place to live when I really needed one. Add a bedroom and I’d be up near $2000.
The way things are zoned in the USA makes very little sense. We’ve got massive parking lots that are never more than 30% full, commercial units that stand empty for years, and a housing problem. I wonder how you could fix all three problems at once?
Most neighborhoods are also completely un walkable, unless you live right downtown. I live in Chicago (not in the loop) and aside from a corner store, barber, and a couple bars, I can’t reasonably walk to anything.
In my mid twenties (a few years post recession and housing bubble) I, along with a friend, rented a carriage house turned two story apartment in an upscale NJ beach town. The main house was a million dollar plus home, but we rented the apartment for $1600/mo. This included all utilities since everything was tied into the main dwelling. For a couple young guys working for hourly wages this was a perfect way to take advantage of an already established and safe community with a walkable and vibrant downtown, a commuter rail just off the main street that went direct into the city, and public beach access only blocks away. People were always shocked when I told them where I lived. I wish more communities, especially ones just on the outskirts of major urban centers, would have affordable housing policies to allow for these types of dwellings.
Im all for it when it's an existing thing rehabbed in line with what the neighborhood is. The example you give is a good way to do this. This example in the video involves building two story eyesore that will tower over the poor neighbors.
It's all great until an ADU becomes a short term rental....there goes the 'community' vibe and neighborhood security.
Thats just fear mongering
@Donald Thompson not if they are homeless by choice
All the concerns which are dismissed at beginning of the video are true. Living in a big city, it ruins a neighborhoods feel, traffic is awful, parking is difficult, renters car less have parties in otherwise quiet neighborhoods.
Vancouver legalized ADUs, or Laneway houses as they’re called here, back in 2009 to try and relieve the housing crunch we’ve been experiencing here for decades. Evidently, with huge migration west and record immigration, our province just yesterday announced that every SFH lot in the entire province (ie state) is now upzoned for up to four units to try and alleviate the growing housing crisis.
The public access path to the new dwelling's front door,
IS A PUBLIC PATH past the neighbour's private space.
How does the neighbour get to keep their privacy.
In Singapore if you look into your neighbour's windows it is a jail offence.
It is clearly a private walkway on the lot, separated from the neighbor's lot by a fence. The site plan @2:00 labels it "new walkway".
@@johngreiner3879 and evey man and his dog can walk down the new walk way to the new front door to the new residence.
And walk down the length of the neighbour's home.
Every man and his 🐕 , in fact any member of the public.
If drugs are being sold from the new front door, the public will not see from the street.
Yep you are right no problem there, 😊
Every one is happy.
Every public person can go to a front door. And knock on the front 🚪 door..
In fact all the friends can walk down the public access path and talk and make a noise any time of the day or night.
Yep and a copy of the plans can be shown to everyone who visits, no problem, ezi pezi.
It depends on the location, and surrounding density, it's a temporary solution that leads to overcrowding in residential zones. I think rezoning for multifamily dwellings is better. What do you guys think
"overcrowding" tell me you're american without telling me
my city got plagued by backyard houses, used to be a garden city, and now its filled with 2-6 house per lot units. Everything got worse, more traffic, more noise, less trees, less wildlife and more mosquitoes, more taxes (3 taxes per property) making a single bedroom house cost twice the minimum wage, and of course, the beauty of the city is gone, its just a massive horizontal appartment building now...
lol
My sister and her family live in an ADU in California. Apartments in her neighborhood got to be too expensive, and they opted to move to an ADU to stay in the area. It's small (about 800-900 Sq ft) but suits them for now. It's a nice building because it's very new, and she has off-street parking (part of the regulations) which some apartments in LA don't have, or don't have enough of. Not sure I would want them in my area, but I can see how they are helpful to the tenants.
My city, Ardmore, Oklahoma, has some large older neighborhoods that are dotted with little guest houses and garage apartments. It’s pretty common here to rent them out if you own a house with one.
What about the impact on neighbours? I would be very unhappy about being overlooked, house and garden shading and demand on parking space. Also the loss of green space provided by gardens. Also home owners can be belittled as nimbys but may have saved all their lives to afford a house with green space which is then degraded by over development.
That Part
Nobody is forcing them to build and ADU in their own green space. And if they get belittled as a NIMBY for that, its because that's literally a NIMBY position lol
The problems mentioned in this video do not exist outside of large cities, so this topic was new and interesting for me. I just bought my first home on 8/10 of an acre for 50k. Big cities try to create a perfect community by adding rules. My community has almost no rules but we’re all getting on just fine.
Thank you for giving this perspective! I have had the same experience, having lived in dense urban and more rural areas.
Some people have have types of epilepsy making driving impossible so living in walkable cities are our only real option to live independently.
I live in a very rural area but it has adopted a no tolerance ADU position. Even the country people make bad rules.
This can also be a suburb issue, including places with multi-acre lots (generally, expensive neighborhoods). I'm on 6 acres and we couldn't build an ADU.
My neighbor refuses to deal with rats, vermin, and woodchucks that have required me to take overly extensive precautions to kill the ones that wander into my garden or home.
There's not a gap wider than a pencil eraser that's not covered by rodent proof screening outside my entire two story brick home. I use a live trap for the woodchuck so that the other wildlife isn't murdered and a bin for water large enough to drown them without opening the live trap. I used to dump them back in their hole when she wasn't home but even with the extreme smell she wouldn't do anything to deal, now they go into contractor bags for the trash man.
Bad neighbors are terrible to deal with. Doubling your neighbors doubles that chance.
I'm still for this for non rental properties. Grandma or your college age kid are welcome to come and stay, the last thing a neighborhood needs is more landlords.
I just love how so many of the solutions to our housing problems are fought because folks want to "preserve the character" of the neighborhood. What on earth does that even mean????
In Australia we have tonnes of these in areas that are transitioning from suburban to urban. Usually 4 on a 1/4 acre block. They actually increase land value as it means that developers can make/ are willing to spend 4x more per a square metre of land as they can easily make more than they would if they had just built a single new home and sell it. The only downsize is that it hasn’t been great for housing affordability for families as the only affordable option is dense block style housing in an outer suburb 1.5h from the city or a small 2 bed (3 if you are really lucky to find one for an ok price in a good area)
That's not an ADU... that's subdivision.
ADU's in Australia are on the same land title (not strata) and aren't allowed to have a separate address or council services- bins and water. Electricity can possibly be submetered. Until recently they also had to be occupied by a family member. The size is usually limited to 60 or 70sqms.
Excellent video! My city recently approved ADUs and I’ve thought to convert my detached garage. Lack of housing is one reason they’re being approved. Another, more nefarious reason is to herd people away from rural areas and into dense “smart cities” as part of the WEF’s 4th industrial revolution of tracking, tracing and controlling the population. I personally think an exodus out of cities into smaller communities is healthier for people all round.
Yep
Quite the opposite, as more dense residential areas generally come with more walkable areas, which leads to more general social interaction without it being a huge ordeal. The more sparse populated states are kinda what has led my generation, Zoomers, to be so terminally online and depressed.
The WEF plot has nothing to do with owner-occupied homes putting an ADU in the backyard, and everything to do with Wall Street firms buying up homes for mass rental. The ownership class doesn't care about density. Urban planners who want to stop seeing towns go bankrupt and want people to have good services are pushing for density. The "bad guys" want cities to go bankrupt so they can privatize water & other services and push everyone to bottled water like in Flint. Rural & small-town living can be vastly different themselves. Living near a midsize town is a lot different than deep rural that's 50 miles away from a town. The worst living style is disconnected twisty-road suburbia. A house might be over a mile from the nearest business, but still lack the peace & wilderness of a small town. ADU's would help suburban owners afford their properties, and give lower income people more options.
ADUs seem reasonable to me but I'd cover up the plywood. I like the idea of having a separe tiny home. Would probably use it as a lounge/guest house.
My parents were gonna build me an ADU on our property. It was gonna be like a trial run for an apartment or house before i actually moved out. It would've allowed me to save over 1k in monthly rent as i wouldve only been charged $350/mo compared to the local market price of 1500+/mo for a studio apartment. The only reason it hasnt happened was because the downpayment of 7k got STOLEN and then SEIZED by police because our contractor was a Person of Interest related to the murder of a family of 5.... He went into hiding and we never saw our money or the ADU get built. He was also contracted to build our garage. 2k was the downpayment for my tiny home and 5k was the downpayment of the garage.
Wonderful short term solution to densification. I just hope that a lot of tiny housing units has the same efficacy as building a few bigger blocks. It'd be interesting to see the numbers emerging.
Also, stop trying to make OSB as a decorative finish a thing, people. It just looks like someone forgot to come back and finish the job.
this video ignored that many suburbs don't actually have sidewalks, at all. they don't have transit services, they're not mixed use so driving is required.
@@Lildizzle420 if you markedly increase the population of a neighborhood, busses can follow. You can't develop everything from the ground up all at once. Baby steps.
@@Lildizzle420 Self-driving electric taxis. Ideally microtrams (rails not having the impermeable surface problem that roads have, and trams mix better with pedestrians since they don't leave the rails), but that's a more expensive retrofit and, well, doesn't really exist ;).
@@henryglennon3864 you need 60 units per acre to get reliable transit and you're not going to get that with ADUs
He's not wrong about the OSB, it's just lazy. :)