City officials didn’t foresee the large, “outlier” backyard-unit projects, like this build in Clairemont, that have cropped up in recent years under San Diego’s ADU program. (Photo by Madeline Nguyen/Times of San Diego)
PACIFIC BEACH – One of the most controversial housing projects in San Diego is on hold.
A California Superior Court judge in December granted a preliminary injunction on a 136-unit accessory dwelling unit project in Pacific Beach, pausing construction and marking a step forward for concerned residents.
The preliminary injunction came just four months after a group of neighbors banded together to file a lawsuit against the city and developer SDRE Homebuyers. In their suit, Neighbors for a Better Pacific Beach argue the project was approved with little oversight, despite posing environmental risks and sitting on historically significant Kumeyaay land.
“The entire hillside breathed a sigh of relief once the preliminary injunction was put into place,” said Merv Thompson, the group’s chair. “Because all of us were extremely fearful of this project, it created a huge emotional stir throughout the neighborhood.”
The project, named Chalcifica, is planned for a three-acre site on the intersection of Bluffside Avenue and Pacifica Drive. The project includes six three-story buildings and 70 parking spaces in a neighborhood of mostly single-family and military housing.
City planners approved the 136-unit project under the city’s previously unlimited bonus ADU program, before it was reformed in June.
Key neighbor concerns stem from the site’s existence along a congested Interstate 5 access route. Thompson said that additional residents and vehicles, combined with the area being in a high fire hazard severity zone, pose considerable safety issues.
“It’s a disaster from a traffic point of view. It’s a disaster from a police and fire requirements [point of view],” Thompson said. “There’s a whole myriad of problems that would have been introduced into our community by this project. It’s astounding that it even came into existence.”
As a more than 50-year PB resident, Thompson opted for legal action after watching similar ADU projects be “rubber-stamped” across the city.
“We were pretty indecisive about it until we started hearing about projects all over the city that were being approved, where bulldozers would literally arrive unannounced and start clearing a home next to neighbors,” Thompson said. “… It raised alarms all over the communities of San Diego.”
Before the June reforms, the city encouraged large ADU projects as a solution to the housing crisis, approving them automatically based on preset requirements.
SDRE president Brian Doyle said Chalcifica and other similar projects by the company will help alleviate San Diego’s housing shortage.
“This court proceeding was not unexpected and will not deter us from continuing our mission, consistent with the state of California’s goals regarding building new housing, and the City’s objective to meet those goals,” Doyle wrote in a statement.
Neighbors for a Better Pacific Beach argues the city’s automatic project approval violated its own development codes. They claim the project should have been held to a subjective review process under the California Environmental Quality Act, and a tribal consultation due to the project location.
According to case documents, the city did not respond to requests made by the Kumeyaay Cultural Repatriation Center last spring for tribal consultation, despite acknowledging the project’s presence on historical Kumeyaay land.
“It would truly be outrageous if the City were to approve such intense development at our traditional village, the last largely undeveloped Kumeyaay village site along the San Diego coastline,” KCRC spokesperson Steve Banegas wrote in a May 1 letter. “This would result in unacceptable impacts to a site that the City has determined to be significant under the California Environmental Quality Act and eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.”
In Thompson’s words, the December preliminary injunction proved that their case had a “fighting chance” in court, with the ultimate goal being to prevent the project entirely.
“The second choice … would be to put some respectable, thoughtful, planned housing down there,” Thompson said. “Put some houses in there that will complement the neighborhood and give a good return on investment, so long as the development doesn’t impact negatively and is supported by the Kumeyaay nation.”
SUPERIOR, Colo. — Four years after the Marshall Fire destroyed Superior’s most affordable neighborhoods, the town is turning to accessory dwelling units (ADUs) as one path toward rebuilding lost housing.
An ADU is a separate, secondary dwelling built on the same lot as the main residence.
“Historically, our original town was the more affordable area of town,” said Renae Stavros, planning and building director for the Town of Superior. “But we lost all of it to the Marshall Fire.”
She explained the original homes in the neighborhoods near town hall were built in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s.
“They were just naturally affordable before, and once gone, the cost of the land is much higher now. The cost for construction, the cost for materials, really, just in order to build a house today, especially in Boulder County—it’s expensive,” she said. “Affordable housing in Superior, as of today, doesn’t really exist.”
Throughout this month, Denver7 has checked in with metro-area communities receiving funds from the first-ever Colorado Department of Local Affairs Accessory Dwelling Unit Grant Program.
Superior will receive $225,000, which they will put toward their Superior Building Today: Encouraging ADUs in the Town of Superior program, with the town providing $75,000 in matching funds.
Part of the plan is to develop pre-approved ADU designs for homeowners to choose from.
It’s similar to what the City of Brighton plans to do with its grant.
Brighton
Brighton to streamline permitting process for ADUs offering pre-approved plans
“Having a pre-set design will help you get through that process a lot faster,” said Michael Martinez, city manager for the City of Brighton, when Denver7 reported on the city’s ADU plan.
Superior also plans to research how to waive building fees or offset ADU costs in certain cases, using a consultant in the upcoming year.
Larimer County to waive building permit fees for affordable ADU rentals
“In exchange for keeping that housing affordable, we are willing, and able now, to waive the building permit fees,” said Rebecca Everette, community development director for Larimer County, when Denver7 reported on their ADU plan.
Superior’s plan also includes a GIS story map that will guide homeowners interested in building ADUs through the process and explain the available waivers and preset designs.
“There are still a lot of Marshall Fire survivors who have been displaced because of the cost of housing, and so we really hope that we can incentivize, in some way, Marshall Fire survivors to be able to come back,” said Stavros.
She added that about 50 units of affordable housing for Seniors are set to begin construction in 2026.
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Ever wondered how long it would take to build an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, in your backyard?
In the case of Alvaro “Al” and Nenette Alcazar, a retired couple, who downsized from a six-bedroom home in New Orleans to a one-bedroom ADU in Los Angeles, it took just 3½ months.
“We went on vacation to the Philippines in November, right as they were getting started on construction,” Al says of the ADU his son Jay Alcaraz and his partner Andy Campbell added behind their home in Harbor Gateway. “When we returned in March of this year, the house was ready for us.”
The Alcazars were surprised by the rapid completion of their new 570-square-foot modular home by Gardena-based Cover. By the time construction was finished, they hadn’t yet listed their New Orleans home, where they lived for 54 years while raising their two sons.
Andy Campbell, seated left, and his partner Jay Alcazar’s home is reflected in the windows of the ADU where Alcazar’s parents Al and Nenette Alcazar, standing, now reside.
Jay Alcazar and Andy Campbell’s backyard in Harbor Gateway before they added an ADU.
(Jay Alcazar)
Alexis Rivas, co-founder and CEO of Cover, was also surprised by how quickly the ADU was permitted, taking just 45 days. “The total time from permit submittal to certificate of occupancy was 104 days,” he says, crediting the city’s Standard Plan and the ADU’s integrated panelized system for making it the fastest Clover has ever permitted.
For Al, a longtime religious studies professor at Loyola University New Orleans and community organizer, the construction process was more than just demolition and site prep. Seeing the Cover workers collaborate on their home reminded him of “bayanihan,” a Filipino core value emphasizing community unity and collective action.
“Both of my parents were public school teachers,” says Al, who was exiled from the Philippines in 1972. “When they moved to a village where there were no schools, the parents were so happy their children wouldn’t have to walk to another village to go to school that they built them a home.”
“It’s only one bedroom but we love it,” says Nenette Alcazar. “It’s the right size for two people.”
Like his childhood home in the village of Cag-abaca, Al says his and Nenette’s ADU “felt like a community built it somewhere and carried it into the garden for us to live in.” Only in this instance, the home was not a Nipa hut made of bamboo but a home made of steel panels manufactured in a factory in Gardena and installed on-site.
Jay Alcaraz, 40, and Campbell, 43, had been renting a house in Long Beach for three years when they started looking for a home to buy in 2022. Initially, they had hoped to stay in Long Beach, but when they realized they couldn’t afford it, they broadened their search to include Harbor Gateway. “It was equidistant to my job as a professor of critical studies at USC, and Jay’s job as a senior product manager at Stamps.com near LAX,” Campbell says.
When they eventually purchased a three-bedroom Midcentury home that needed some work, they were delighted to find themselves in a neighborhood filled with multigenerational households within walking distance of Asian supermarkets and restaurants.
The ADU does not overwhelm the backyard. “It looks like a house in a garden,” says Al Alcazar.
“We can walk to everything,” says Jay. “The post office. The deli. The grocery store. We love Asian food, and can eat at a different Asian restaurant every day.”
Adds Campbell: “We got the same thing we had in Long Beach here, plus space for an ADU.”
At a time when multigenerational living is growing among older men and women in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center, it’s not surprising that the couple began considering an ADU for Jay’s parents soon after purchasing their home, knowing that Al and Nenette, who no longer drives, would feel comfortable in the neighborhood.
They started by reviewing ADUs that the city has pre-approved for construction as part of the ADU Standard Plan Program on the city’s Building and Safety Department website. The initiative, organized by former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office in collaboration with Building and Safety in 2021, was designed to simplify the lengthy permitting process and help create more housing.
The 570-square-foot house has a single bedroom and bathroom.
Jay and Al Alcazar have coffee in the kitchen of the ADU.
They reached out to several potential architects and secured a line of credit for $300,000. They decided to go with Cover after touring its facility and one of its completed ADUs. “We liked that they were local and their facility was five minutes away from us,” Campbell says.
The couple originally envisioned removing their backyard pergola and lawn and adding an L-shaped ADU. But after consulting with Rivas, they decided on a rectangular unit with large-format glass sliders and warm wood cladding to preserve the yard.
The configuration was the right choice, as the green space between the two homes, which includes a deck and drought-tolerant landscaping, serves as a social hub for both couples, who enjoy grilling, sharing meals at the outdoor dining table and gardening. Just a few weeks ago, the family celebrated Al’s 77th birthday in the garden along with their extended family.
Nenette, a self-described “green thumb,” is delighted by the California garden’s bounty, including oranges, lemons, guava trees and camellias. “I can see the palm trees moving back and forth and the hummingbirds in the morning,” she says.
“They’re a lot of fun,” Jay Alcazar says of his parents. “They are great dinner companions.”
Although some young couples might hesitate to live close to their parents and in-laws, Jay and Campbell see their ADU as a convenient way to stay close and support Jay’s parents as they age in place.
Besides, Jay says, they’re a lot of fun. “They are great dinner companions,” he says.
Campbell, who enjoys having coffee on the outdoor patio with Al, agrees. “When I met them for the first time 12 years ago, they had a group over for dinner and hosted a karaoke party until 3 a.m.,” he said. “I was like, ‘Is this a regular thing?’”
A teak bed from the Philippines and family mementos help to make the new ADU feel like home.
Unlike the Alcazars’ spacious 1966 home in New Orleans, their new ADU’s interiors are modern and simple, with white oak floors and cabinets and Bosch appliances, including a stackable washer and dryer. Despite downsizing a lifetime of belongings, Al and Nenette were able to keep a few things that help make the ADU feel like home. In the living room, mother of pearl lamps and wood-carved side tables serve as a reminder of their old house. In their bedroom, a hand-carved teak bed from the Philippines, still showing signs of water damage from Hurricane Katrina, was built by artisans in Nenette’s family.
“Madonna and Jack Nicholson both ordered this bed,” Nenette says proudly.
The couple chose a thermally processed wood cladding for its warmth. “It will develop a silver hue over time,” says Alexis Rivas of Cover. “It’s zero maintenance.”
But one thing didn’t work out in their move West. When they realized their sofa would take up too much room in the 8-foot portable storage pod they rented in New Orleans, they decided to purchase an IKEA sleeper sofa in L.A. It’s now in the mix along with their personal artifacts and family photos that further add memories to the interiors, including a reproduction of the Last Supper, a common tradition in many Filipino homes symbolizing the importance of coming together to share meals. With limited storage, the families share the two-car garage, where Al stores his tools.
“It’s only one bedroom, but we love it,” says Nenette, 79, of the ADU, which cost $380,000. “It’s just the right size for two people.”
The ADU feels private, both couples say, thanks to the 9-foot-long custom curtains they ordered online from Two Pages Curtains. “When the curtains are open, we know they are awake, and when their curtains are down, we know to leave them alone,” Jay says, laughing at their ritual.
In terms of aging in place, the ADU can accommodate a wheelchair or walker if necessary, and Rivas says a custom wheelchair ramp can be added later if necessary.
Now, if only Jay could mount the flat-screen television on the wall, Al says, teasing his son. It’s hard to escape dad jokes when he’s living in your backyard — and that’s the point.
“It’s really nice having them here,” Andy says.
Jay Alcazar and Andy Campbell enjoy having Al and Nenette Alcazar close. “They feel like neighbors,” Jay says.
After losing his family and home in the Philippines when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in the country, Al, who once studied to be a priest, says he’s deeply moved to be the recipient of the bayanihan spirit once again.
“I was tortured in the Philippines, and it didn’t break me,” he says. “So having a home built by a friendly community really points to a shorter but more spiritual meaning of bayanihan, which is, ‘when a group of friends,’ as my grandma Marta used to say, ‘turns your station of the cross into a garden with a rose.’ Now, we have Eden here in my son’s backyard.”
Antonio Adriano Puleo didn’t intend to renovate his traditional 1946 bungalow in the Glassell Park neighborhood just north of Mt. Washington, but after consulting with architectural designer Ben Warwas, who told him he could transform the house into a “forever home,” the artist changed his plans.
“I originally wanted an ADU,” Puleo said of adding an accessory dwelling unit to expand the art studio in his garage. “For me, it was about having a bigger studio and being able to have collectors and curators come to the studio.”
However, as Warwas explored the two-bedroom home and corner property — the designer had previously designed and built a wood deck in Puleo’s backyard — he began to envision a new narrative for the spaces.
The Glassell Park home before the renovations.
(Ben Warwas)
The exterior of the house and ADU is now painted bright yellow. There’s also easy access to the outdoors.
“The living room wasn’t big enough, and it featured a huge red brick fireplace that had doors on either side of it, leading to the backyard,” said Warwas, who first met Puleo when they were undergraduate students at Massachusetts College of Art (now called Massachusetts College of Art and Design). “To access the outdoors, you had to walk down concrete steps to a covered patio.”
Paired with a third door off the kitchen, the home’s entrance to the backyard was awkward at best.
After touring the property, Warwas proposed some subtle changes: adding a 250-square-foot ADU to the garage, removing the fireplace and raising the ceiling height in the living room; adding a loft bedroom in the attic; and redesigning the exterior of the house.
The front of the 1946 house remains the same.
“It was a small project, but there were a lot of issues with the house,” Warwas said. “I thought, ‘Why don’t I propose four different things and he can choose two or three of them?’ He chose all four.”
Puleo, 49, purchased the bungalow in 2010 for $387,500 after seeing an ad for a two-bedroom home “priced well for a quick sale” in Glassell Park. Although only 1,000 square feet in size, the house offered a backyard for his dog and a detached garage.
“The garage was really the draw,” Puleo said. “The thing about the house that attracted me is that it had a space that could be a studio.”
The living room of Puleo’s Glassell Park home before it was redone.
(Ben Warwas)
Puleo, standing, and Warwas in the living room today. “We both have a love of design,” Puleo said of his longtime friend.
Shortly after purchasing the house, Puleo renovated the kitchen and bathroom, opened up the wall between the two spaces and widened the kitchen door. “There were so many doors,” he said of the compartmentalized floor plan. “Doors in the kitchen; doors in the dining room.”
Still, it wasn’t easy to reach the garage, which housed his art studio, and the adjacent laundry room. “I was always frustrated with the house because it was not maximizing space efficiently,” Puleo said. “The studio was detached, and we had to enter through a gate.”
And so the makeover began.
Warwas tore out the fireplace and extended the living room by six feet, adding a sleek Fleetwood sliding door that provided instant access to the backyard. Then, he raised the ceiling of the living room and added a sculptural curve that completely transformed the living space.
Because the home had a complex roof and an accessible attic, Warwas then transformed the attic into a loft that Puleo uses as his main bedroom. (The two bedrooms on the first floor are used as a den and a gallery space/guest room.) Thanks to the high ceilings and a new skylight, the attic now floods the center of the living room below with natural light.
Puleo’s patterned canvases hang in the ADU.
The ADU, which is attached to the garage, and just six inches from the main house, features a kitchen, bathroom and living area. Puleo is using it as part of his art studio.
“Little tweaks totally transformed the house,” Warwas said.
In the garage, Warwas designed an ADU that can function as an art studio or rental, featuring a small kitchen, bathroom and enough room for a bed. The design of the ADU was carefully considered to maximize space and light, with a skylight and high window flooding the space with light.
A level shift offers a dramatic experience when you step into the ADU, as the floor drops below to the art studio and the ceiling goes up, creating a sense of spaciousness.
Puleo chose bright blue tiles from Daltile for the shower of the ADU.
The living room’s fireplace is gone, but the wooden mantle remains atop a console behind the sofa, graced with a series of colorful ceramic planters by Ashley Campbell and Brian Porray of Happy Hour Ceramics.
“Ben and I have known each other since we were in college,” Puleo said, emphasizing their long-standing relationship and the collaborative nature of their process. “The fun thing about the project is that we did a lot of back and forth in terms of communicating shapes and forms. We both have a love of design, and Ben does a great job of using traditional materials in a way that ignites them and increases the dynamics of a space.”
Puleo’s art studio, a former garage, rests a few steps below the new ADU.
On a recent visit, Warwas was still fine-tuning home improvement possibilities. “You could put a stackable washer and dryer here,” he suggested to Puleo as they stood in the hallway. (Puleo had moved the appliances from the laundry room in the garage to the basement of the main house.)
Similarly, Warwas appreciates Puelo’s curatorial skills. “He’s made his home so personal,” Warwas said of his friend, who, for the last year, has featured the works of local artists in one of the downstairs bedrooms, which served as an art gallery.
“It’s an amazing house,” Warwas said of the interiors, which are enhanced by the artworks and make visitors feel connected to the space.
“People often take notes when they come to visit,” Puleo said of his art collection.
1
2
1.Designer Ben Warwas stands inside the 250-square foot ADU, which features a tall window and a skylight. 2.In the former garage, stairs from the art studio lead up to the ADU and bathroom. (Lisa Boone / Los Angeles Times )
From the sidewalk, the traditional stucco bungalow looks like so many others in the neighborhood. But step into the backyard, past the colorful paintings, textiles, tiles, stained glass and ceramics and the new rear exterior — painted a bright yellow — and it’s like a completely different property.
“The front of the house didn’t change, and the back of the house is totally different,” Warwas said of the exterior, which reminds him of a piece of paper that has been cut up and folded together. “It’s a fun moment.”
That he was able to totally transform the house without adding much square footage does not escape him. “It creates a landscape where you can travel back and forth, and the garden is now much more a part of the house,” Warwas said. “The yard got smaller, but it feels bigger.”
A stained-glass panel by Puleo hangs in the bathroom.
Mixed-media pieces by Megan Reed are on display in Puleo’s bedroom art gallery.
Despite a $95,000 ADU addition eventually growing into a $320,000 overhaul for the property, Puleo is happy to have the flexibility that comes with living in a home with two separate spaces.
“I could add a lofted bed and live in the ADU and make art and rent out the house if I wanted,” Puleo said. “It would allow me to go back and forth between the East and West coasts and teach and be with my family in Boston.”
As he sat taking it all in from his dining room table overlooking the San Gabriel Mountains, the artist said, “The house is super efficient now. This is a magical space.”
Puleo also chose colorful textiles for his dog Ono’s bed.
Over the last century, L.A.’s love affair with the single-family home has created a suburban sprawl of epic proportions.
Three bedrooms. A white-picket fence. A square of grass for the barbecue.
But for many, the dream of home ownership will never be realized. Home prices have soared, wages haven’t kept pace, and more than half of L.A. residents rent their home. What’s more, the fires in Altadena and Pacific Palisades earlier this year destroyed thousands of homes, sending droves of homeowners scrambling back into the rental market.
Los Angeles knows how to weather a crisis — or two or three. Angelenos are tapping into that resilience, striving to build a city for everyone.
The Los Angeles City Council has given final approval to a sweeping rezoning plan to meet state-mandated housing goals, clearing the path for an additional 255,000 homes to be built. But single-family zones will be left largely untouched; the new housing will be developed along commercial corridors and existing dense residential neighborhoods. In the meantime, some municipalities are fighting the state’s housing mandates.
A two-story ADU shares a lot with a 1916 Craftsman bungalow.
(Yoshi Makino)
Market fluctuations and legislative uncertainty make predictions challenging. But some observers believe that by 2050, the fate of L.A.’s housing stock will be decided by one of two competing ideologies:
One of them is associated with many corporate landlords and investment firms, which buy up increasing shares of homes and rent them out to tenants. If they prevail, it’s likely that 2050 will look the same as it does now, only the chasm between the rich and the poor will grow. Home prices will keep rising, as will L.A.’s percentage of renters, according to Tiena Johnson Hall, general manager of the L.A. Housing Department.
The other view comes from a coalition of policymakers, nonprofits and aspiring homeowners who are hoping for a future where L.A.’s homes are within reach of its working class, and properties are owned by the people who live in them.
Their shared vision looks like this: Denser neighborhoods. Smaller homes, some modular or 3-D-printed. Properties co-owned by friend groups instead of just families. ADUs in backyards across the city, many of them separated from their original properties and bought and sold as separate homes.
L.A. County Assessor Jeff Prang, who points out that people commute to L.A. from Santa Clarita, Palmdale, Lancaster and Riverside, believes people will start moving closer to the city.
“People don’t want to live 40 miles away from L.A. and slog through two hours of traffic every day. It affects their quality of life,” Prang said. “The answer is to increase density, upzone areas and allow multifamily housing.”
But he doesn’t see the battle between the state and local governments (and HOAs that hope to keep things the way they are) ending any time soon.
The Burbank Housing Corp. held an open house to show an affordable housing project called the Fairview Cottages in Burbank. There are three single-family homes on the property.
(Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)
Sacramento has a few tools at its disposal, including what is colloquially known as builder’s remedy, a penalty for cities that don’t adequately plan for California’s inevitable population increase. California cities are required to produce a housing plan every eight years that brings zoning for additional housing. If they fall far enough behind on that plan, developers in those cities can essentially ignore local zoning restrictions and build whatever they want, as long as the project includes a handful of affordable housing units.
A handful of cities have fallen behind on their plans, and developers capitalized, getting the green light for high-density projects that wouldn’t be approved otherwise.
Currently, housing element laws only require cities to plan and zone for additional housing. But by 2050, the state could go further, forcing cities to permit and encourage housing construction and punishing those that don’t.
A drone shot shows a two-story ADU, which rests an inch from a 1920s bungalow and five feet from a 1990s duplex and a few feet from a dingbat apartment to the south.
(Steve King Architectural Imaging)
The most important tool for shaping the future of L.A. housing may very well be Senate Bill 9, which makes it easier for California homeowners and developers to add density by splitting single-family lots in half and building duplexes, townhouses and ADUs.
Thanks to a handful of bills that make ADUs easier and faster to build, Prang said ADU applications have skyrocketed since the law passed in 2021, and his office spends around 40% of its time processing them. Many applications this year have come from fire victims looking to build ADUs quickly to live in while they rebuild their homes.
Today, building takes time. There are a dozen governmental agencies involved, and projects get mired in red tape. But Prang said by 2050, he expects there to be a single portal that consolidates all the applications and checkpoints required, so new developments can be green-lit in weeks or months, not years.
L.A., where 72% of residential land is zoned for single-family use, is also looking to Measure ULA to help mitigate its housing woes. The measure, which took affect in 2023 and brings a transfer tax to property sales above $5 million, has already raised more than $660 million for housing and homelessness initiatives.
It’s a polarizing policy. A recent analysis from UCLA’s Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies — titled “The Unintended Consequences of Measure ULA” — suggests the tax has chilled a once-robust market in L.A., while sales above $5 million have remained steady in other markets across L.A. County not affected by the tax. But by 2050, Measure ULA will likely have raised tens of billions of dollars — an unprecedented amount of cash that, if used effectively, has the potential to solve many of the cities housing woes.
“We’ll use those funds to bring housing to market faster and look at creative models for home-ownership — things we haven’t been able to do for lack of funding,” said Johnson Hall, whose Housing Department oversees Measure ULA.
Three- and four-bedroom townhomes mix with single-family homes in the background in Yorba Linda.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“Other cities are grabbing our youth. Seattle and Denver offer more affordable homes with walkable amenities,” Johnson Hall said. “Our economy is dependent on giving those 20- to 30-somethings a reason to stay here.”
Real estate agent Christopher Stanley is all too familiar with L.A.’s grueling application process for building, rebuilding, or even remodeling. He specializes in tenancy-in-common properties, a form of possession where residents share ownership of a property.
The TIC model often comes in the form of developers replacing single-family homes with townhouses, splitting one house into two. Stanley said there’s plenty of demand for it, since the price-per-square-foot typically runs about 25% less than single-family properties, but the lengthy permitting process makes it unattractive for many developers.
By 2050, Stanley said AI could make the permitting process so quick and painless that not only house-flippers and developers, but also individual homeowners, could add density to their neighborhoods. Single-family homes become duplexes. Empty backyards become lots for ADUs.
A 650-square-foot ADU behind an 1890 home in Los Angeles.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
“It’s the easiest way to get affordable housing stock onto the market,” Stanley said. “But changing the laws will be crucial.”
For Stanley, the biggest boost would come if more cities allow ADUs to be sold as separate properties, not just rented — a trend that has already caught on up the coast in Oregon and Washington. California’s Assembly Bill 1033 allows such sales, but cities have to opt-in. San Jose was the first in 2024, and a few Bay Area cities followed. But Southern California, a region that has grown accustomed to the single-family lifestyle, hasn’t been as eager to adopt the idea.
“If we want more people owning their homes instead of renting, we have to make ADUs something you can buy,” he said.
In 2016, Stanley said, he sold a 900-square-foot tiny house in Boyle Heights to a 31-year-old for $375,000. The buyer used it as a way into the market, and three years later, they sold it for $515,000 and upgraded to a bigger mid-century home in Mount Washington. He said if prices and wages continue the way they’re going, ADUs and tiny homes will be the easiest way into the market for young people.
“They’re a jumping off point. It’s the quickest way to stop paying your landlord’s mortgage and start paying your own,” he said. “It’ll be happening a lot more by 2050.”
Homes won’t be the only things changing in 25 years. The people filling them will, too.
The 20th century saw the rise of the nuclear family, and most homes were bought and occupied by parents and their children. But these days, young people are waiting to get married — if they’re getting married at all — and not having as many children.
Combine that with their inability to afford a home in the first place, and we’ll soon see the rise of co-buying: Groups of friends going in on a Silver Lake bungalow. Two families splitting an Eagle Rock Craftsman. Parents purchasing a Mid-City property along with their adult children.
An aerial view of Valencia. A vertical city may tempt people from the suburbs who no longer have the dream of a single-family home.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Matt Holmes is the chief executive of CoBuy, a company that helps groups of people co-buy homes and collectively manage the property. He said California is its biggest market due to the price of homes outpacing wages across the state.
The company’s data don’t go back that far, but in 2023, a CoBuy survey found that roughly 27% of U.S. home sales were bought by co-buyers — groups beyond married couples. The same year, data from the National Assn. of Realtors showed that co-buyers made up a bit less of the market for first-time homebuyers at roughly 19%. Either way, it’s a big hike from a few decades ago, when the trend was virtually nonexistent.
“It’s an expedited path to home ownership, and it helps people gain access to a broader swath of housing stock beyond just starter homes,” he said.
Holmes co-founded the company with his mother a decade ago. Over the last year and a half, he said, friend groups have taken over family groups as his biggest clients.
If neighborhoods get denser, homes get smaller, and shared homes become more common, one factor often associated with single-family homes will be up in the air. What happens when all you can afford is a cramped 500-square-foot ADU? Or the grassy backyard where your dog used to run around is replaced by a two-story townhouse?
Angelenos will probably spend more time outside the house in 2050. As a result, parks and communal spaces will become not just a want, but a need.
An ADU in South Pasadena.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“In Los Angeles, our parks include everything from neighborhood recreation centers and open spaces to theaters, beaches, lakes, aquariums, equestrian centers, golf courses, historic homes and gardens. They are the shared treasures of our community,” said Lindsey Kozberg, executive director of the Los Angeles Parks Foundation, a nonprofit that formed in 2008 as a response to budget cuts to park programs during the recession.
Kozberg said parks funding could be in danger once again, given the nearly $1-billion budget shortfall the city is facing. If the trend continues, by 2050, it’ll likely require a mix of philanthropic funding and community partnerships to make sure every Angeleno has a safe and accessible park to visit.
“There are more than 500 parks across the city alone, and they encompass a wild and wonderful collection of spaces,” she said.
By 2050, the city could have even more by simply rethinking spaces that already exist. Kozberg suggested converting neighborhood schoolyards into public parks on nights and weekends — a cost-effective option since the city wouldn’t have to build anything new.
Jordan Lang, president of McCourt Partners, said gathering places have become so much more important in the age of the internet, and investing in them is vital to the growth of the city.
Lang serves as president of Aerial Rapid Transit Technologies, the limited liability company behind the controversial proposed gondola system that would take baseball fans from Union Station to Dodger Stadium. The aerial transportation hasn’t been approved, as the environmental impact report needs sign-off from a handful of government agencies.
“This is a test case of what we can do in L.A.,” Lang said, adding that it would also serve nearby Elysian Park, getting people out of their cars and into green spaces.
By 2050, he envisions massive, well-funded parks and public spaces filled with people both day and night. Such spaces will be inviting, constantly programmed with community events, and easy to get to via public transportation.
“L.A. is an incredible place to live,” Lang said. “People will keep moving here. We need to create a city that makes them want to stay.”
Almost since the first suburbs were built in Los Angeles, there have been worries that adding density would “Manhattanize” L.A., rendering it so crowded with new vertical development as to be unrecognizable to longtime residents. In the 1980s, as battles over growth heated up, one local slow-growth group dubbed itself Not Yet New York.
But Los Angeles has always been a city with a knack for reshaping itself by looking to its own architectural past. In particular, medium-density designs such as bungalow courts and dingbat apartments have welcomed waves of newcomers for more than a century while becoming architectural emblems of upward mobility and a particularly Southern Californian design sensibility — informal and optimistic.
We have never needed a return to that kind of development more than now, in the wake of the Eaton and Palisades fires, even as public discussion has focused mostly on rebuilding exactly what was lost. With affordability pressures as intense as ever, now is the time not to Manhattanize but, once again, to Los Angelize L.A.
As longtime advocates for design excellence and policies to boost housing production, we believe there is nothing more Angeleno than the reinvention of the so-called R1 neighborhood, the single-family zone that first emerged in L.A. with the Residential District Ordinance of 1908. R1 zoning shifted into overdrive in 1941 when tract houses emerged to replace the bean fields of Westchester, near what is now Los Angeles International Airport.
It wasn’t until 2016, with the appearance of a new state law allowing accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, that the R1 neighborhood evolved in any meaningful way. Even the most ardent champions of ADUs — aka granny flats or casitas — couldn’t have foreseen how widely popular they’d become. Today, about one-fifth of new housing permits in California and a whopping one-third in the city of L.A. are ADUs.
Still, the granny flat is no silver bullet. The housing affordability crisis in Los Angeles demands a more ambitious approach than adding new residential development one small unit at a time. State laws allowing as many as 10 apartments on a single-family lot have been on the books for several years now. But homeowners and developers have been slow to take advantage of them, and many California cities have dragged their feet in making them truly usable.
The result has been a stalemate, with Los Angeles among the cities struggling to take the important step past the ADU to begin producing additional missing-middle housing in real volume, even as rents and home prices continue to climb. The city‘s Low-Rise LA design challenge was organized in 2020 to help break this logjam. Many of the winners incorporated design lessons clarified by the COVID-19 pandemic, when we learned that second, third and fourth units in R1 zones might offer not just rental income or an extra bedroom but the flexibility to quarantine or work from home while building stronger ties with extended family and neighbors.
A new initiative — Small Lots, Big Impacts — organized by cityLAB-UCLA, the Los Angeles Housing Department and the office of Mayor Karen Bass builds on Low-Rise LA with a focus on developing small, often overlooked vacant lots, of which there are more than 25,000 across the city, according to cityLAB’s research. The goal is straightforward: to demonstrate a range of ways that Los Angeles can grow not by aping the urbanism of other cities but by producing more of itself.
Different views of the “Mini Towers Collective” and the “Shared Steps” proposals. Both favor shared outdoor space balanced with individual architectural identity.(courtesy of cityLAB UCLA)
Winners of this design competition, announced at the end of May, placed six or more housing units on a single site, sometimes dividing it into separate lots. One proposal created rowhouses, slightly cracked apart to identify individual homes and entrances as they cascade along an irregular site. A communal yard opens to the street in another project, with roof gardens between separated, two-story homes atop ADUs that can be rented or joined back to each of several main houses on the site. Other designs show that vertical architecture, in the form of handsome new residential towers from three to seven stories, can comfortably coexist with L.A.’s low-rise housing stock when the design is thoughtful enough.
A key goal of the competition was to produce new models for homeownership. When land costs are subdivided and parcels built out with a collection of compact homes, including units that can produce rental income or be sold off as condos, a different approach to housing affordability comes into focus. Those who have been shut out of the housing market can begin to build wealth and contribute to neighborhood stability.
The traditional R1 paradigm, in addition to limiting housing volume, suffers from a rigid, gate-keeping sort of logic: If you can’t afford to buy or rent an entire single-family home in an R-1 L.A. neighborhood, that part of town is inaccessible to you. Many of the winning designs, by contrast, create compounds flexible enough to accommodate a range of phases in a resident’s life. In one development, there may be units perfect for single occupants (a junior ADU), young families (a ground-level unit with a private yard), and empty-nesters (a home with a rooftop garden). As with the granny flat model, construction can proceed in phases, with units added over time as circumstances dictate.
Having served on the Small Lots, Big Impacts jury, we see signs of hope in its rendering of L.A.’s future. The real proof lies in the initiative’s second phase, set for later this year, when the city’s Housing Department will issue an open call, based on the design competition, to developer-architect teams who will build housing on a dozen small, city-owned vacant parcels, with tens of thousands of privately owned infill lots ready to follow suit. If the winning schemes are built, Los Angeles will once again demonstrate the appeal and resiliency of its architectural DNA. Manhattan: Eat your heart out.
Dana Cuff is a professor of architecture, director of cityLAB-UCLA and co-author of the 2016 California law that launched ADU construction. Christopher Hawthorne, former architecture critic for The Times, is senior critic at the Yale School of Architecture. He served under Mayor Eric Garcetti as the first chief design officer for Los Angeles.
Eager to boost the supply of affordable housing, city officials in Long Beach devised a program that could help a limited number of homeowners build an extra unit on their land.
But before they could launch it, they had to decide what to call it.
“We’ve been playing with a name for a while,” Mayor Rex Richardson said, noting that a news release touting the program had been delayed days because of christening purposes. “We’re building the bike as we ride it.”
Long Beach officials settled on the self-explanatory “Backyard Builders Program,” hoping a partial solution to a dearth of affordable housing lies in the unused spaces of city homeowners’ property. It’s a concept widely supported by advocates of low-income housing although some argue that the city’s version should have included more tenant protections.
Long Beach’s pilot program uses one-time funding that will provide as many as 10 homeowners low- to zero-interest loans of up to $250,000 to build Accessory Dwelling Units, or ADUs, on their lots. Those units would have to be rented out to lower-income individuals or families for a minimum of five years.
“Long Beach has been a leader on ADU production,” Richardson said. “And we’ve done all the things we need to do … to make it easy for people to develop ADUs in their backyard.”
Claremont McKenna College’s Rose Institute confirmed in an April report that Long Beach was among the most ADU-friendly cities in the state, having issued 1,431 ADU permits between 2018 and 2022. While that total trails larger cities like San Diego (2,867), Long Beach produced 317 permits per 100,000 residents.
An ADU, as defined by the city’s Community Development Department for this pilot program, must come with independent facilities that include a living room, sleeping area, kitchen and bathroom.
In addition to agreeing to the temporary rent limit, property owners must live on site and have less than four units already on their land.
The units may be rented to anyone earning 80% or less of the Los Angeles County median income, which translates into $77,700 for an individual, $88,800 for a two-person family, $99,900 for three people and $110,950 for four, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning.
But the program gives homeowners an extra financial incentive to rent these ADUs to recipients of Long Beach’s housing choice voucher program, which provides a portion of the rent for those who fall into extremely low income, very low income or low income categories.
Building an ADU has grown more expensive in recent years, with labor and material costs jumping 11% and 9%, respectively in 2021 and 2022, while construction labor costs rose 34% between 2018 and 2023.
The loan covers up to $250,000 in planning, permitting and construction costs, though Kelli Pezzelle, a Backyard Builders community program specialist, doesn’t anticipate the loans needing to be that high.
The interest on the loan will remain at 0% as long as the owner rents the ADU to a low-income recipient. A stipulation for loan qualification is that the owner must rent the home to a voucher recipient for a minimum of five years or a nonvoucher, lower-income tenant for seven years.
The loan’s interest rate will jump to 3% if rented to someone who doesn’t meet the income limits after the five- or seven-year period. An owner would incur a $2,500 monthly penalty if the ADU is rented to a nonqualified tenant ahead of time.
The possible removal of low-income tenants concerns Long Beach Residents Empowered, or LiBRE, an advocacy group that pushes for the creation and preservation of affordable housing and renter protections.
“We’re happy that the city is investing in affordable housing and trying to reduce the housing shortage,” said LiBRE’s Project Director Andre Donado, via a phone call. “Every single renter, however, is at risk of eviction after five years.”
Donado also hoped the city would consider offering relocation assistance of $4,500 to low-income renters displaced through no fault of their own in all cases.
“I think there are several positives with the program, and we’d like to see it made permanent, with some adjustments,” Donado said.
The pilot’s loans are significantly larger than the up to $40,000 in aid provided by California Housing Finance Agency’s ADU Grant Program, which doled out $125 million to help homeowners cover permitting and planning costs before running out of funds.
The city believes that house-rich, cash-poor homeowners, particularly seniors, could take advantage of the loan to build an ADU and create passive income. The program estimates that the ADUs built with its loans would generate more than $1,000 monthly for owners who rent to voucher holders.
“You may be a grandma or someone who’s got way too much backyard, and you want to be a part of the solution, but it may be hard for you to navigate or identify financing,” Richardson said.
To that end, the city is expected to appoint a project manager to help loan recipients choose an architect, builders, planners, contractors and others needed throughout the planning and construction process. That manager will work as an intermediary between the property owner and the general contractor.
One caveat for interested property owners is that a qualified renter cannot be a relative or a caregiver for their household.
As for the loan, payments will be deferred during the building process up to two years.
Richardson said since the program is based on loans that will be repaid over time, it will be self-sustaining. If it’s deemed a success — meaning that ADUs are built and rented to lower-income tenants — he said the city would consider looking for more revenue streams to expand the project.
The city is hosting a series of Zoom webinars to gauge interest in the program and answer questions.
DENVER — A Colorado family is taking advantage of the state’s new housing law to spend more time together.
House Bill 24-1152 was signed into law in May and allows homeowners to build accessory dwelling units (ADUs), also known as mother-in-law suites, by requiring certain communities to allow them to help ease the housing crunch.
Laurel Triscari and her daughter Ami Roeschlein love to spend time together. As Roeschlein’s mom got older, they talked about her moving closer to family.
“So she lives up in Evergreen where it, you know, it gets snowy. She’s under 80, but getting closer to it, and so having to shovel her driveway or her front steps is just not feasible. We wanted a place for her to be able to age in place,” said Roeschlein.
The two looked into ADUs for two years and found a company to help them. Triscari could be closer, and the family could have grandma in their backyard.
The company, Anchored Tiny Homes, said that since the new law took effect, business has really picked up.
“We are busy. There are three to 400 folks reaching out a week right now asking to see if they can get an ADU built in their backyard,” said Brent Dowling, the co-owner of Anchor Tiny Homes.
Dowling said that not only are ADUs cost-effective, but you also have the power to craft a home of your own.
As Triscari and her daughter wait for their ADU to be finished, they look forward to more time together.
Colorado’s new housing law helping Evergreen woman spend more time with family
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With mortgage rates high, California’s ADU laws constantly changing to help alleviate the housing crisis and the median price of a home nearing $750,000, it’s not surprising that homeowners are choosing to stay put and add tiny homes in their backyards for extended family or extra income.
If you’ve been curious about ADUs and the design, budget, permitting, and construction process, you can tour several in person on Feb. 10 in a self-guided tour sponsored by housing advocates Homeplex, Sidekick Homes and How to ADU in conjunction with the ADU Academy.
The Los Angeles edition of the SoCal ADU Tour will feature more than 10 homes in Mid-City and on the Westside and offer the opportunity to talk to homeowners — including lower-income state grant recipients and multi-generational families — who have gone through the ADU design and build process.
“The goal with this event is to inspire a lot of homeowners to take the leap and plan and build their ADUs,” said tour organizer Ryan O’Connell. “We want to give them a big boost where they learn as much as possible in one day, in a low-pressure environment, where they see real projects completed by real homeowners.”
The ADUs range from under 500 square feet to a 1,200-square-foot two-story unit as well as modular, pre-fab units, and ground-up projects. Participating builders and designers include Sidekick Homes, Building Blocks, NEO Builders, 360 Builders, Bunch ADU, Abodu and Maxable, who will also be on-site to answer questions.
To offer a broad look at ADUs, the tour will include several ADUs under construction, one listed for sale, multiple garage conversions, and another brought up to code after the city of Los Angeles issued a citation for an unpermitted unit.
Los Angeles ADU Tour
When: Feb. 10, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Where: The homes are clustered around Mid-City and the Westside. The week before the tour, ticket holders will receive a detailed Google map describing each home and address.
Walk past the street-facing 1990s duplex and beyond a 1920s Sears Roebuck kit bungalow, and an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, rises before you at the end of the property. It’s a slim, two-story rental clad in inexpensive white vertical corrugated metal.
Only then do you realize this single Venice lot has four rental units.
With Southern California in desperate need of housing and state and federal laws constantly evolving to make permitting ADUs easier, the detached home by architects Todd Lynch and Mohamed Sharif of Sharif, Lynch: Architecture feels like a harbinger of what’s to come.
“When the city encouraged us to increase housing, I thought of the Venice property,” said owner Ricki Alon, who had previously worked with the architects and builder Moshon Elgrably on another project. “Given the unique site constraints, I didn’t believe they could do it. I was worried it would be too crowded and negatively affect the small guest house.”
The two-bedroom ADU was built five feet from an existing duplex and four feet from the property line.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Alon was hesitant at first, but after a persuasive Zoom call with the architects, they all agreed that a fourth unit would add value to the bustling community.
“We viewed it as a challenge and a way to transcend ADUs in an SB9 world,” Sharif said, referring to Senate Bill 9, the 2022 state law that allows homeowners to convert their homes into duplexes on a single-family parcel or divide the lot in half to build another duplex for no more than four units.
Alon loved their initial sketches despite her skepticism, and the project moved ahead.
“It’s taught me how to think differently about how things are arranged and how I store things,” Henry Schober III said of his 13-foot-wide rental.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
The large windows in the living room overlook the courtyard and give the ADU an open and airy feel.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“We decided to go as high as possible,” Sharif said of the eventual design, a slim, two-story ADU built on what was previously a driveway. Slipped into the lot, the 1,200-square-foot ADU, or IDU as the architects like to refer to the infill dwelling unit, was built an inch from the 1920s bungalow, five feet from the duplex and four feet from the property line.
Resting a few feet from a dingbat apartment to the south, the ADU is lifted off the ground to preserve two parking spots in the alley and a swimming pool in front. “Its entire width is dictated by that two-car side-by-side dimension,” said Sharif, who teaches in the undergraduate and graduate design studios at UCLA. Lifting the volume to preserve the pool also created shade and an open space that all residents could share.
“They refused to get rid of it,” Alon said of the water feature. “They insisted on building around it.” Today she admits it was the right decision. “Now, when you walk in, you experience a wonderful, absolutely lovely environment. I’m glad they did not listen to me,” she added with a laugh.
The narrow living room, seen from the staircase, and the first-floor office and en-suite bathroom. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Even though you can’t see the rental from the street, the ADU has enormous curb appeal and a touch of glamour. A Midcentury-style Sputnik pendant light hangs outside the front door, giving it an elegant feel, and the white cladding gives it a distinctive quality from the other rentals, which are clad in orange metal and gray siding.
The driveway before Sharif, Lynch: Architecture added a two-story ADU alongside a bungalow, right, and duplex, in back.
(Sharif, Lynch: Architecture)
Up a short flight of stairs, the front door opens to the ground floor and the two-story entry, which features a compact first-floor bedroom, study and en-suite bathroom.
“We wanted every room to have a bathroom to suit roommates,” Sharif said.
Tenant Henry Schober III, a 38-year-old attorney specializing in data privacy, uses the ground floor as his office and a bedroom for out-of-town guests.
“It’s a place that I’m comfortable spending a workday in,” said Schober, who goes to the office once or twice a week. “I don’t feel like I’m trapped in my house.”
Tenant Henry Schober III takes advantage of the ADU’s rooftop deck, which offers panoramic views of Venice. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
An overhead view shows the ADU’s proximity to the modern duplex and bungalow.
(Steve King Architectural Imaging)
Up the stairs to the second floor, the main living area and kitchen measure just 13 feet wide; large windows and operable skylights add light and cross-ventilation throughout the linear floor plan.
“The windows make you feel like you’re in an amazing penthouse in SoHo,” Alon said. “It gives the room a great energy.”
The rest of the second floor houses a powder room, bathroom and bedroom. Because of limited space, there was no room for a formal dining room. However, Schober said that’s easier to maneuver than the limited storage, which has taught him to think differently about how he stores and displays things.
The pool was preserved to create a communal area for all tenants.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“I eat at the long breakfast bar, and when I have people over, I use the common space or the roof deck,” he said.
The home’s two floors feel like three, Lynch said, “because of the way the stairway draws one upward through the IDU and then because of how the roof steps up again.”
The roof deck serves as another outdoor room, further expanding the living space. From the rooftop deck, Schober has panoramic views of Venice, not to mention ample room for a dining table, barbecue and sauna.
After renting an apartment temporarily a few blocks from the beach, Schober was still determining whether he wanted to rent another apartment in Venice.
The master bedroom on the second floor.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“It originally turned me off to Venice,” he said. “The price points were so high. It felt like people were paying for the ZIP Code. Landlords were asking five grand for an apartment next to a parking lot.”
But when he saw the two-bedroom ADU, he changed his mind. “When I walked in, I thought, ‘I’m going to live here,’” said Schober, who is originally from Philadelphia and moved to Los Angeles from Switzerland.
“The apartment and the secluded feel changed my attitude,” Schober said. “You get the convenience of Venice and access to all the restaurants and shops, but you’re not in the thick of things. I lived in San Francisco for a decade, Europe for six years. I view the apartment as an oasis in a neighborhood that is not as transformed as others.”
Schober said the strength of the architects’ vision is that the unit is quietly tucked away in a congested neighborhood. “Since you are set back from the street, there is no foot traffic,” he added. “It doesn’t feel like I am living among a bunch of units. There is little street noise, and you would never know you live a stone’s throw from Lincoln Boulevard.”
Stairs lead up to the rooftop deck.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Perhaps most impressive, the ADU defies the notion that you can’t have parking, privacy and quality of living, including a swimming pool, on a tight infill lot with other properties.
In a sense, Schober said, “It seems the solution to the housing crisis is building up.”
“There is a community feeling, and people know each other,” Sharif said. “They sit around the pool, and it’s very intimate and private.”
After a 10-month building process, the team completed the project this spring at a cost of approximately $410 per square foot.
Looking back, Alon is grateful that she moved forward with the project.
“It’s not just a unit that brings value to the property,” she said. “It enhances the entire property for everyone. Adding housing in this condensed community is important, but this team made it something beautiful that people will enjoy. You don’t have to add a huge amount of square footage to add quality of living.”
A lucky cat figurine sets the tone inside Henry Schober III’s two-bedroom ADU in Venice.
