San Diego Jurisdictions Embrace
Backyard Home (ADU) Ordinances
It's been a challenge met with mild to strong resistance, however, many if not most San Diego Jurisdictions, including the County, are coming to grips with California's newest laws on "Backyard Home" aka "Accessory Dwelling Unit" (ADU) ordinances.
While some jurisdictions are still resisting or not embracing the new law in its entirety, there are others like the City of Encinitas who are leading the field with proactive and streamlined permit processing requirements and costs; Possibly even fee waivers.
In fact they are even considering fast tracking pre approved plans that meet their criteria in order to make the process even less burdensome, time consuming and costly to the property/homeowner.
Before the new State Laws were enacted many if not most jurisdictions were charging full blown environmental and developmental impact fees and requiring a property/homeowner to pay exorbitant permit fees, gas, water and electrical meters, fire sprinklers, mandatory and extremely difficult parking requirements thereby driving front end fees up as high as 40 to 50 thousand dollars.
No doubt this stifiled the incentive and motivation for folks to move forward knowing that they still had to deal with all the design and construction costs which could easily run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But things have changed. It is now possible to cut the front end costs down by 10's of thousands of dollars and add a Backyard Home on their property for under $100,000.
This has opened the door to a whole new way of maximizing the return on property you own. Be it to realize additional revenue streams to offset costs, age in place by renting your primary residence while staying on your property and living in your Backyard Home, provide an independent living space for a family member or home service and/or healthcare provider. Whatever the purpose you now have a much easier and far less costly way to maximize the return on your most expensive investment.
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