We know there are millions of people thinking about downsizing, due to costs, maintenance, and their health. But the real estate market provides few quality turn-key solutions. It makes sense to encourage homeowners to add a granny flat! From the latimes.com:
To help ease California’s housing crisis, Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers are turning to people’s backyards.
Multiple bills with the endorsement of Brown are moving through the Legislature to make it easier for homeowners to build small units on their properties, whether in their garages, as additions to existing homes or as new, freestanding structures.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and other supporters hope the relaxed rules will spur backyard home building to combat a housing shortage that, by one estimate, leaves the state annually more than 100,000 new units behind what’s needed to keep pace with soaring home prices.
“These bills enhance homeowners’ ability to provide needed housing,” Garcetti and Los Angeles City Councilman Gil Cedillo wrote in a letter supporting measures from Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica) and Sen. Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont).
Together, the Bloom and Wieckowski bills would force cities to permit the backyard homes — also known as “secondary units” or “granny flats” — eliminate cities’ ability to require additional parking spaces for units near transit, and limit fees charged to connect to local water and sewer systems.
Homeowners such as Rochelle D. Ventura could stand to benefit if the bills pass. The retiree, who once worked in city government, said she spent around $5,000 several years ago in an attempt to build a secondary unit in her Beverly Grove backyard.
But after the design was submitted to the city, Ventura said she was denied: The driveway that led to the backyard wasn’t wide enough, and a portion of it was covered.
“I couldn’t do it, and that is a shame,” said Ventura, 78. “I have a beautiful granddaughter who was going to live there.”
Read full article here:
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-fi-small-houses-solution-20160725-snap-story.html
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We have seen several pre-built alternatives – here is another that sells for around $70,000 plus shipping and installation:
The problem is parking. A neighborhood where we have rentals allowed for secondary rental units to be built in homeowners backyards, since all the lots featured large backyards. Many owners took advantage of the new opportunity.
Cut to a couple of years later, if a resident arrives home after 6 pm, it takes 15 minutes to a half an hour to find parking within a block of where they live. Sometimes longer. It’s an unmitigated disaster, if you need to park in the street.
The city makes a lot of money via increased property taxes, and street sweeping once a week at 5 am creates a robust and reliable parking ticket revenue.
So, we have a crappy quality of life for the many, in the long term, to increase the quality of life for the few, for the short term.
A typical city council would take to it like evil bees to honey.
The trick to making this happen is to add a second property tax to granny flats. Without an additional tax for the second house on the same property there isn’t any incentive for citys to change zoning to accommodate this type of thing.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2016/04/22/bill-would-cut-red-tape-for-granny-flats.html
“The Bay Area Council, a CEO-led business association, is the bill’s primary sponsor. Local supporters include a long list of large companies and real estate firms”
This is an attempted end-run around bay area cities’ refusal to permit construction of high density corporate housing (i.e. company dormitories). The name “granny flat” is apropos because grannies would rent them out to Chinese and Indian H1B Googlers and Facebookites. I doubt any of the units would look anything like those pictured above.