In 2017, the state of California issued some new land use bills that made it easier for (and even incentivized) homeowners to build Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs).

Each city was tasked to update their local codes and guidance to meet the new state requirements. The government keeps tweaking the guidelines so they change a little here and there, but this flyer is a great overview. The full details of the ordinance (as of today anyway) are here.

We were back and forth on the JADU over our year of designing. Here is what I came up with for some pros and cons:

PROS

1. up to 50 additional sq ft of building (this is HUGE if you are limited for a small lot)
2. could make a nice extra source of income (could make a REALLY nice source of income if you moved into the JADU in retirement and rented the rest of the house…)
3. makes a super nice guest room for visitors (but hopefully not nice enough to encourage the kids to hang around and use it as a free apartment after they graduate high school!)

CONS

1. it’s officially a JADU per county records (we had go down to San Jose and sign a deed restriction (to get through planning) and you have to assign a separate street address to the JADU (I am not sure how we do this yet…)
2. it’s a little fuzzy what would happen down the line you remodeled again and removed the JADU… do you have to give back the 50 sq ft?
3. is it awkward to have a kitchenette in room that we will likely just use a teen bedroom for a few years?

Ultimately the pros win! I think it is cool. It will be fun to design a studio apartment, and I think it will actually be super fun for my teen daughter to have her own kitchenette to practice for dorm life.

A little more about the deed restriction…it doesn’t look too bad, mostly we were just worried how it ultimately lands from a resale perspective–since most people don’t like restrictions!

DEED RECORDING NOTE: To avoid a return trip to the county (like we did)…make sure that if you are married you write both full names in the template text (I wrong “Jane and John Doe”–this is incorrect). Also if you include an old map from your old deed make sure it is completely legible. Lastly, make sure you bring 3 copies (unless you want to bring some dimes and use the machine there)!

The deed restrictions we signed sum up to:

• we can’t sell the JADU separately from the house
• we (property owners) have to a) live in either the main house, b) live in the JADU, or c) rent the whole house to one tenant (family) as long as we expressly forbid the tenant from subletting the JADU to another party–basically we just can’t rent it out like a duplex to two separate families.
• rentals must be >30 days (no short term rentals)
• this restriction applies to all future property owners

There is a separate deed restriction link for the full (detached) ADU but it looks exactly the same as the JADU one as far as I can tell.