Comment by hellbannedguy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hellbannedguy | Hacker News Reader

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If you can get this contraption on your property (foundation, plumbing hookup, electric, all permit fees.) for under 100k in a desirable area, like the Bay Area, it's a great deal.

If I had a flat lot that was accesssble, I would look into this further.

In my town, even with the protections Gov. Neusome provided, getting an ADU is still a hassle.

In my town, rich people are using ADU's to add square footage to their existing houses. Some are actually successful with getting a variance, if they kiss enough ass. Or, know someone on that council, but I can't prove this alleviation now. I could a few years ago. Variances are over $1000, and until recently very few, like less than 1 percent, were granted. The town kept those fees though. Gotta keep those fees, and fines.

That said, it's still a rich man's game:

1. Council members go over every aspect of your ADU.

2. They even had the gall to ask an older homeowner whom will be living in the ADU. The guy said it would probally be a attendant, but felt he didn't need to discuss his medical history on tv. (San Anselmo tapes their meeting. I guess it's for litigation fend offs? If that's the case, they are not doing themself's any good. They are obviously biased.)

3. The town has a right to tell you what color paint your addition will be.

4. The town tells homeowners to go to their neighbors, and basically beg for their remodel.

5. The town can determine where you place windows.

6. The town can tell you what kind of roof they will approve.

7. The town can tell you what kind of siding to use. Better not use stucco, if they want wood?

8. The town can dictate what plants you use around unit.

(I'm conflating an ADU, and a remodel--a remodel usually requiring a variance. I'm not sure how difficult is is to just put in an ADU. If any town signed off on these modular units, they are quite a buy. I have my doubts.)

I looked into building an adu a few years back, and I can backup most of what you said. At least in California, in an incorporated city.

We worked out that it would cost us $30k in fees, and required spending before we could even dig the footers. Things like a soil test, inspections, variance’s etc.

You can always build an ADU, but it’s a rich mans game. And not really accessible to most people. We calculated our unit to cost roughly $80-90k, and would be almost 2x $/sqft of our home. A remodel made more financial sense, but the above problems still persist.

>We worked out that it would cost us $30k in fees

This is a feature not a bug.

They don't want people who can't writing a 30k check doing development.

They want the old elderly couple of limited means to move out and make way for some yuppie who will pay big taxes, not slap a bottom dollar ADU up so that they can be cared for by live-in relatives.

It's literally the opposite. Old people are way richer and have the time and money to go through the bureaucracy. Also old people are much better connected to local politicians. Yuppies are who they're trying to repel, that's why they make it so hard. Its much more like a college student or yuppie would move into the ADU.

Not all of them are rich, unless you count the value of their 80-years old home. They may have a high net worth but be cash-strapped.

A house is much more liquid of an asset than most people make it out to be. Old folks qualify for reverse mortgages

Please, in California, that “old elderly couple” pays no property taxes and can spend their life blocking housing for new middle class families (and they do, all the time).

>Please, in California, that “old elderly couple” pays no property taxes

That's why they want them out. To replace them with someone who pays big $$$$. What's so hard to get about this?

They don't want them moving their caregiver into an ADU. They don't want them renting their ADU to supplement a fixed income. They want them gone. Since they can't tax them out they just prevent them from making money on their land value (via zoning) and let the COL do the rest.

>and can spend their life blocking housing for new middle class families (and they do, all the time).

The elderly sometimes do this but they are mostly scapegoats. The primary culprits are the 30-something on up through middle aged crowd who still need to work and need property values to remain high long enough that they can cash out of the ponzi scheme and retire to elsewhere.

You know the council doesn't directly receive the tax dollars, right? This is a conspiracy theory.

There are no variances for ADUs. The town is breaking state law. Talk to CaRLA about your options.

>If I had a flat lot that was accesssble, I would look into this further.

This was my thought as well. Seems like a quick and dirty solution to getting a house on an existing lot for immediate move in.

If you're cost conscious then going the longer term route of building your own might be better.

Those sound like good things. I live in a place where non of those demands are considered acceptable (or noone bothers to coordinate) and family-home suburbs look absurd. Every house is from another world, like the neighbors didn't exist. Color, style, fence, roof: everything is as random as you can imagine. It's a continuous spatial conflict.

I'm with you on wealthy people who want to build huge houses.

I'm not with you on the guy whom justs wants to remodel, with no increase on footage.

(I don't like the increase in Permit fees either. It prevents basic upkeep on a home. Towns/cities know they can increase revenue by raising fees on anything. That's why we have $270 green righ turn citation. (you can only turn left on a green in certain situations. You need to wait for a green arrow.) If a county can't afford to fund employees, especialy nonessential personnel--fire them. We are not running a charity ward, as they like to say when asked about helping the homeless?)

As far as I'm concerned what I'm talking about doesn't have anything to do with remodeling, unless you're doing something janky.

I am very curious why you would want your house to look exactly like ( or coordinated) with your neighbor? One of the things I felt odd in US is that every house in a sub-division looks like they were made from cookie-cutter. Isn't expressing individuality and having the freedom to make use of your own land in way that suits you more important, as long as it does not impact the living conditions of your surroundings?

Different folks want different things. Though as time goes on more and more houses look different in style in the same neighborhood. There are limits though - there are only so many ways you can do a garage and the required drive from it to the street so that always looks similar.

Most builders of spec houses intentionally buy just a few scattered lots in many different neighborhoods - that way they can build the same house they always build, yet not neighborhood has two houses that look alike. But there are neighborhoods where all houses are built exactly alike...

Copy-paste suburbs is bad too, that's the other extreme. What you want is for the architecture to have awareness of its surroundings and to have it seek harmony, not conflict.

Those sound like good things to you — some people prefer a world where they are free to do as they wish with the property they own, so long as it doesn’t cause a problem for neighbors (I.E. basic maintenance to avoid pests, overgrowth, etc.). I have the opposite take on the neighborhood you described: uniformity is boring, uninspiring, and depressing.

The word uniformity puts a negative spin on the sense of cohesion I'd like to see (like uniforms). What I'm talking about is how a group of friends adjust to each other. They show a sense of togetherness, self-awareness and interplay that leaves a sense of harmony. I'm not talking about a platoon of soldiers in uniform at attention.

The thing is, in the Bay Area, suburbs still look absurd because rich people can build anything by greasing the local bureaucracy enough.

It’s obvious if you’ve ever set foot anywhere south of San Francisco: depressing, no common architectural style, really dumb land use, yet somehow you’d need a million permit to change a window on your house.

It turns that I think it's really nice to be able to distinguish your house from your neighbors in a few words: "white colonial with a red roof, past the brick ranch and the blue Cape Cod".

Having to say "Number 12702" really isn't the same.

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