February News from the Napa Sonoma ADU Center
Spreading that ADU Love
For those of you who follow accessory dwelling unit news, you may have noticed that ADUs are everywhere these days – in fact, even the White House is spreading the ADU love! You can check out a recording here of a recent event hosted by the White House where national experts discussed how ADUs can help us build crucial housing for our friends, family, workforce and neighbors.
As the national experts point out, one of the key barriers to ADU development – which will surprise pretty much none of you – is the high cost of construction. This is especially true here in Napa and Sonoma Counties and for this reason, here at the Napa Sonoma ADU Center we are thrilled to invite you to part two in our mini webinar series in partnership with Redwood Credit Union, where we will share more details about a new ADU loan product that opens up financing opportunities for homeowners who might not otherwise be able to afford to build an ADU.
Register here today to join us and experts from Redwood Credit Union next Wednesday, February 23 at 6:00 pm to learn more about the product and how you can finance your ADU build!
Redwood Credit Union is a nonprofit, mission-driven portfolio lender with nearly 400,000 members in northern California and it is managing all aspects of the ADU lending program. Napa Valley Community Foundation, a public charity that focuses on the most important challenges facing the region (and is the fiscal sponsor of the Napa Sonoma ADU Center) is setting aside reserves which will be available to help defray losses that the credit union might incur under new underwriting standards which take future ADU rental income into account in ways that traditional loan products do not.
One of the reasons you may be seeing the ADU love in the local news as of late is because our cities and counties here in Napa and Sonoma are currently in the midst of their Housing Element planning. This is a process that takes place in eight year cycles and allows our local jurisdictions to share with the State of California about how our jurisdictions plan to take action to meet our housing needs. To learn more about local housing needs and how our jurisdictions have teamed up to tackle this process, check out this super informative website. Our local jurisdictions are in the midst of soliciting feedback and insights from community members like you to inform their Housing Element plans, so if you want to share your thoughts, now is the time to reach out to your city or county about how you can do so!
And in the spirit of spreading more ADU love, if you’re curious about garage conversions, you’re in luck because I will be moderating an awesome webinar next Friday, February 25 at 11:00 am hosted by the Casita Coalition on how to build a garage conversion ADU. The webinar features multiple ADU experts along with keynote speaker Dana Cuff, Director of cityLAB at UCLA. Register here today to join the conversation!
Finally, this Black History Month I want to share about the ADU love that is the City of Oakland’s new Keys to Equity program, an initiative that targets support for Black homeowners who seek to build wealth via building accessory dwelling units in their community.
Here at the Napa Sonoma ADU Center we know that a crucial mechanism for building roofs over the heads of our friends, family, workforce and neighbors is to share our ADU love and learnings far and wide. Thank you as always for joining us on this journey – and remember, our nonprofit is here to help with any of your ADU questions – just reach out anytime!
Warmly,
Renée J. Schomp
Director, Napa Sonoma ADU Center
PS If you’re in Sonoma County, register here for this upcoming webinar hosted by Generation Housing outlining their State of Housing in Sonoma County Report – taking place on Thursday, February 24 at 4:30 pm.
Join Maxable in a virtual walk-through of a garage storage space turned stunning studio with a loft!
Give to Napa Valley Community Foundation
If you would like to support our nonprofit program’s continued efforts to help homeowners in Napa and Sonoma Counties, please feel free to do so at this link (to our fiscal sponsor, Napa Valley Community Foundation) where you can designate it to the Napa Sonoma ADU Center.