Preventing Abuse of ADU Laws
There are several issues with ADUs that are unintended consequences of the new ADU laws, as they do not align with the goals of the ADU law.
The primary motivation of the ADU law was to provide for additional housing stock by supporting the creation of new units that add to the overall rental housing supply; and the goal was to provide a more affordable housing option with the potential to provide significant amounts of new rental units, new housing opportunities. According to the ADU legislation, the purpose of ADU’s is to increase density by creating new second units in order to provide additional rental housing stock. An ADU is an accessory dwelling to the single-family dwelling, not a normal separate rental unit, as the intent of the law was not to change single-family zoning to multi-family. According to the State ADU law, ADU’s are meant to increase the supply of the state’s housing stock and cause an increase in dwelling units, and not to act to supposedly maintain density by replacing a rental housing unit with a much smaller ADU.
But what is happening is that ADU’s are playing a role in projects that are being submitted where applicants want to decrease density by replacing multi-family structures with large single-family homes with tiny ADUs. These projects are changing multi-family neighborhoods to single-family neighborhoods, as they are gradually increasing the number of single-family dwellings in multi-family zones. For such projects they are getting a parking benefit--if they were replacing a duplex with a duplex they would be required to have four parking spaces (in the Coastal Zone) but with an ADU they only need three, two for the SFD and one for the ADU. If the project is located near transit the one space for the ADU could be waived. Also, some are adding ADU's in order to expand their single-family dwellings to go beyond the square footage that would otherwise be allowed (and don’t intend to use the ADU as a separate rental unit).
The thing is, the evidence does not show that the accessory unit mitigates the loss of the existing normal rental unit, particularly with these tiny ADUs, which are usually a fraction of the size of the existing units they are supposedly replacing, and they are not livable for the same sized family. ADU’s that are replacing existing rental units are usually significantly smaller than the unit they are replacing, some as much as 30-40% of the size of the unit they are replacing. Such a project does not preserve overall density and clearly causes an adverse cumulative impact. State Senator Skinner recently stated that most ADU units are too small and are not creating real, livable housing for our families.
Also, use of the ADU as a separate rental unit is not enforced by the City or the Coastal Commission, and the experience on the ground for those using an ADU as a replacement for a normal dwelling unit has generally been that it is just used as a part of the single-family dwelling and not as a separate rental unit. For almost all of these cases, the applicant admits that they aren’t going to use the ADU as a rental unit. They even admit that they are incorporating the ADU within their single-family dwelling (attached) just to get their project through. They know that no one is going to enforce the rental unit use and they have no plans to rent it out.
These issues with ADUs are very important, as we have a clear and growing trend of multi-unit structures being redeveloped as single family dwellings. It’s the latest workaround of the law and, judging by the number of these projects coming through, people are trying to get in on this loophole before it is closed.
We need to close these loopholes and misuse/abuse of the ADU law. We need to maintain our housing stock with real housing and we need to increase our housing stock with real housing.