Press Democrat Article on ADUs in Sonoma County
Crosspost from The Press Democrat
If you missed it, check out this article in The Press Democrat highlighting Sonoma County’s ADU ordinance and a discussion of ADU trends in the county -- including quotes from Napa Sonoma ADU Center Director Renée Schomp as well as the folks at nonprofit Homes for Sonoma!
Below is an excerpt from the recent article written by Ethan Varian:
Sonoma County relaxes restrictions on in-law units to put dent in housing shortage
Sonoma County has loosened restrictions on in-law units to encourage construction of the “naturally affordable” small-scale homes in hopes of putting a dent in the region’s intensifying housing shortage.
The Board of Supervisors in September approved updates to the county’s permitting rules for accessory dwelling units, also known as ADUs or granny units — backyard cottages homeowners can build on their property, often for family or friends, or to put up for rent.
Some of the changes include removing minimum parcel size limits, easing parking space requirements, speeding up permit application times and allowing the units on multifamily properties.
“We’re hopeful this becomes one tool in our toolbox to tackle our housing crisis,” said Bradley Dunn, policy manager with Permit Sonoma.
During the pandemic, the region’s already high housing costs have skyrocketed as homebuyers continue to flood into Sonoma County and the region works to replace the roughly 6,000 homes lost to wildfires over the past four years.
In September, the median price for single-family houses in the county hit $755,000, a 5% increase from the same month last year and a 16% jump from September 2019, according to data from Compass Real Estate in Santa Rosa and Petaluma.
Rental prices have also spiked. Santa Rosa, the county’s largest city, saw rents increase 11% year-over-year in October to $1,565 a month for a one-bedroom, according to the rental website Apartment List.
The median rental price of an accessory dwelling unit in the Bay Area is well above that at $2,200 a month, according to a study by Center for Community Innovation at UC Berkeley, though rents vary depending on location and unit size.
While Sonoma County’s updated ADU ordinance for unincorporated communities took effect in October, officials have been employing the new regulations since the start of 2020. That’s when all California cities and counties were required to bring their permitting policies into compliance with state laws aimed at making it easier to build the units.
“We needed to bring those regulations up to date on paper, although we were already using them in the real world,” Dunn said.
Still, Sonoma County’s ordinance continues restricting ADUs in rural areas where public water service isn’t available and groundwater for wells is limited. It requires new units there to offset water usage by adding efficiency features such as rainwater capture.
The maximum size of an ADU for the unincorporated county remains 1,200 square feet in most cases.
For now, it’s unclear whether the changes will lead to significantly more accessory dwelling units in the county’s unincorporated areas, home to about a third of the total county population with around 150,000 people.