December News from the Napa Sonoma ADU Center
Join our virtual ADU fireside chat this Thursday, December 2!
As this holiday season commences, our team here at the Napa Sonoma ADU Center is feeling such gratitude for the creativity, perseverance and generous spirit that we witness in each of you -- Napa and Sonoma County homeowners and residents -- every single day.
2021 brought its share of tribulations to our community, and yet each day we hear from new homeowners like you who are ready to invest in building an accessory dwelling unit that will provide a roof over the head of a friend, family member, or neighbor in need of a home.
We know that building an ADU or Junior ADU is no small feat, and we are here to help you take on your project every step of the way. This week, we invite you to join us for our virtual ADU fireside chat here at the Napa Sonoma ADU Center on Thursday, December 2 at 6:00 pm where myself, our ADU Expert Scott, and friend Lindsay (an ADU finance expert and General Contractor) will be gathering to discuss a grab bag of accessory dwelling unit topics during our last webinar of 2021. Who knows, we may even break out the egg nog and wassail while we chat, so feel free to join us prepared with your own holiday beverage of choice!
Register here now for that ADU Roundtable Conversation & Live Audience Q&A. It will be a more casual, interactive webinar than usual where we invite audience questions throughout the conversation. We’ll be covering:
Government agencies: Who’s Who & What Do They Do with ADUs?
Utilities (energy, well, septic, etc.)
Permit Fees: What are they?
Budget & financing
How are ADUs “eco-friendly”?
New developments in ADU construction
YOUR ADU questions, answered live!
Since our nonprofit’s launch in May 2020 we have had the honor of helping more than 300 homeowners with their individual ADU questions, providing nearly 150 homeowners with customized ADU Feasibility Consults, and engaging over 1,500 of you via our educational ADU webinars, newsletter and blog.
Plus, we opened up our twice-weekly ADU Office Hours for all homeowners who have received an ADU Feasibility Consult with us and it has been wonderful to get to meet with folks who return to us for guidance and problem-solving support throughout the various stages of their ADU projects.
One of the homeowners we spoke with recently is James*, a winemaker who lives with his wife and children in the City of Napa. They had an older unused garage/workshop at the back of their property, and during the pandemic began considering converting it into an ADU. Like many people we help, James’s family has both short and long term goals for their unit: They see it as an opportunity to build a passive income stream by renting it to a local tenant in need of a home and eventually downsizing and moving into it in their old age so they can rent their main house out to support their retirement.
Our nonprofit’s ADU Feasibility Consult gave James the confidence to move forward and start his ADU project. Having our customized ADU Report as a reference guide as he went through the options of prefabricated modular vs. a custom stick build helped him understand what the trade-offs and advantages would be with each path. James now has his ADU permit in hand and is in the middle of the build process. He chose his contractor from our organization’s Vendor Registry, and absolutely loves him. Their ADU should be ready for a tenant to move in by April!
And Napa and Sonoma County homeowners like James and his family are not the only ones who recognize the benefits of accessory dwelling units for both themselves and their community. In 2020, ADU permit applications accounted for 11.5% of all building permits pulled in the state of California. And as ADUs continue to gain in popularity and our local jurisdictions continue to make it easier to build them, we anticipate those numbers to increase even more going into 2022.
As The Press Democrat noted in a recent article on ADUs, we are excited to launch the first of its kind comprehensive, multi-jurisdictional Permit-Ready ADU Plans program in partnership with local jurisdictions across Napa and Sonoma Counties in the New Year. We anticipate that this program will facilitate time and cost savings for both homeowners and local governments on ADU builds.
Our team continues to find inspiration and hope in the incredible spirit of homeowners here in Napa and Sonoma County who value the importance of building homes, not only for the future of their own families, but for the future of our community. We look forward to seeing you all at our webinar this Thursday, in our ADU Feasibility Consults and ADU Office Hours, and most importantly in the New Year when we will return to our crucial work with renewed drive and vigor.
With gratitude,
Renée
Director, Napa Sonoma ADU Center
PS - Follow us on social media to stay in touch and to hear as we roll out new free ADU resources and tools for homeowners!
PPS - Este boletín completo y todas las publicaciones del blog se pueden traducir al español en nuestro sitio web! // The full newsletter and all blog posts can be translated to Spanish on our website here!
*Name changed for the sake of privacy
Homes for Sonoma:
From left: Scott Johnson, ADU Expert & Renée Schomp, Director of Napa Sonoma ADU Center join Robin Stephani, Development Director, Homes for Sonoma on the deck of the nonprofit’s modular prefab ADU. This ADU and others from the nonprofit Homes for Sonoma are for sale with the option of financing via a ground lease -- and this model is open to the public at Railroad Square in Santa Rosa on Saturday, Dec 4 & Saturday, Dec 11 from 1:00 - 4:00 pm! Check out details here to learn more. And you can pick up a free hardcopy of our Napa Sonoma ADU Workbook if you drop by as well!
“Napa Sonoma ADU Center is great and a wealth of information! I am so happy that they were around when I first started this journey as their Feasibility [Consult] really helped confirm what was possible in my lot configuration.”
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.